Many commenters have mentioned “The Watts Effect”, whereby within a short period of time after I do a post about the sun on WUWT mentioning the lack of sunspots, one appears.
I figured it was time to settle the issue with a test, a big one. The sun is blank, here is my post. We are about to break the monthly calendar record (again) for a calendar month without sunspots. Ironically this last occurred in August 2008. Depending on whether you believe NOAA or SIDC in Belgium about whether a sunspeck noted by one observatory (Catainia in Italy) was a valid sunspot or not determines if August 2008 was a sunspotless calender month or not. Let’s hope neither Catainia, SIDC, or my nefarious and dubious spot producing solar powers spoil this run.
But wait, there’s more.
This was in Spaceweather.com today:
Inspect the image below. It is a photo of the sun taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Can you guess what day it was taken? Scroll down for the answer.
August 28th, today. But it could have been taken on any day of the past seven weeks. For all that time, the face of the sun has looked exactly the same–utterly blank.
According to NOAA sunspot counts, the longest string of blank suns during the current solar minimum was 52 days back in July, Aug. and Sept. of 2008. If the current trend continues for only four more days, the record will shift to 2009. It’s likely to happen; the sun remains eerily quiet and there are no sunspots in the offing. Solar minimum is shaping up to be a big event indeed.
=========
Here’s the count as of August 30th:
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 51 days
2009 total: 193 days (80%)
Since 2004: 704 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
Murphy’s Law aplies to everything, including Murphy’s Law. The sun will do whatever it will, we can but watch. And some will say “See? Told ya.”
No matter what happens, it will prove the need for more research grants, and large tax increases. Perhaps a few more supercomputers as well.
I’m hoping for a CME that wipes out the MSM satellite network.
Geoff Sharp (07:39:50) :
You said only a few weeks ago we were not heading for a grand minimum….you have predicted a medium SC24 cycle of 72. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. It may be time to get off the L&P bandwagon as they have nothing except good observations of the start of a grand minimum, that you did NOT predict.”
So true! I completely agree, as even last year Dr S. was adamant that there was not going to be a grand minimum because the solar flux was rising at the time.
Landscheidt’s prediction was mocked as numerology and astrology but it is now becoming clear that Landscheidt was right.
Tom in Florida (07:45:34) :
Plea for help. A while back Dr Svalgaard posted some information about an idea that sunspots could be there but we cannot see them due one part of the background energy reaching 15. I know it’s not much, but that’s all I recall. I failed to note it and have searched the archieves but cannot find it. Dr?
it is the Livingston and Penn paper.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
Anthony:
Minor issue: there’s something funny in your transcription of the data from spaceweather.com – they show it as 80% spotless for the year, not 79%.
REPLY: Edited, thanks. I may have grabbed it in mid edit there late last night. – A
If this post causes the sun to go as dark as sack cloth I’m going to be somewhat put out.
Leif Svalgaard (05:04:52)
Thanks. But you only answered the easy question. 🙂
Ray : (08:08:00) : Wasn’t that the Police ? I haven’t heard the song in a long time , but in playing it in my head I hear Sting , not Bono .
Anthony —
I don’t remember the source of this little ditty but, if the shoe fits …
“You remind me of a man.
What man?
The man with the power.
What power?
The power of who-doo.
Who do?
You do.
Do what?
Remind me of a man.
…”
“It’s simple. When the Sun has more spots, it is more active and a little warmer.”
That’s wrong. Sunspots block radiation, thats why they appear darker, and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth. It’s a pretty small variations though. It’s less than ~1WM^2 from a total of ~1400wm^2 reaching the Earth. About a 0.1% change in output from peak to trough in a solar cycle.
Ron de Haan (08:50:49) :
Word.
Ron de Haan (08:50:49)
“Madness, because they intend to cut and tax our energy in times we need more.
Madness, because they intend to derail our economy so they gain more.
madness because they aim for unlimited power and Global Governance at the costs of our legal rights, our existence and our personal freedom.
Madness, because they make us believe they are able to control our climate.”
It’s difficult for many to believe that it may not be “unintended consequences” when political policies go wrong. They (the policies and consequences) may be going exactly right for those who enacted them.
I have long understood that there are more of us (free people) than there are of them (those who wish to control us) and I also understand that ‘they’ know it too. Their only way to gain the power they lust after is to have a smaller and more manageable population.
If those in power were able to take all of our food and throw it into the folly of turning it into fuel, but not enough fuel to keep the masses from freezing to death in a particularly harsh winter then that alone would make a smaller and more manageable population. Cold and starving. “Do as we say and we’ll feed you and let you turn on your furnace today.”
It is a difficult thing to recognize another human being as being evil but sometimes you have to consider that it is the only option left once insanity, stupidity, incompetence and youthful inexperience are all ruled out.
Tucker (05:37:16) :
Leif, if I recall some of your writings, you are now tending to lean the way of L&P and their work. Does that mean you view a MM type event as a still improbable, but growing possibility??
See below
Syl (07:01:43) :
Aug 2008 67.96 Aug 2009 69.01 + 1.05 (1 year)
July 2009 70.43 Aug 2009 69.01 – 1.42 (1 month)
So? You are missing the point: In July 2009 there were sunspots. In the two augusts there were none, so the +1.05 change is the ‘real’ change of the background.
Geoff Sharp (07:39:50) :
You said only a few weeks ago we were not heading for a grand minimum….you have predicted a medium SC24 cycle of 72.
Some people [for their own reasons] pretend to conflate things.
Solar activity [and what flows from that, e.g. TSI] is a magnetic phenomenon, so what matters is the magnetic field. The solar magnetic field consists of millions of thin [perhaps 50 km across] ‘strands’ of such fields. All strands have about the same field strength within a factor of two or so. A typical value is 1500 Gauss.
When many such strands get together [the exact mechanism is poorly known] a sunspot is formed. After its formation, the spot frays apart again and the strands return to the surroundings. When together in a spot, the fields are compacted somewhat and the combined field strength can be more than two times higher [3500 Gauss] in rare cases. A strong magnetic field tends to inhibit the solar convection that brings heat up from the interior so the temperature in a spot is lower than just outside the spot. Therefore the spot looks darker. If the field strength is somewhat lower, the temperature will be higher as the inhibition will be weaker. A warmer spot is harder to see as its contrast with the surroundings is smaller. At a certain field strength [1500 Gauss] the temperature difference with the surroundings is so small that the contrast is not enough to make the spot visible, but is, of course, still there. This is the L&P effect.
During Grand Minima [Maunder and Spoerer before that – and even at lesser ones like the Dalton or the current one] the solar magnetic field is still present. We know that because the modulation of cosmic rays is still present even at such times. So, solar activity [and TSI] has not gone away. This has been a puzzle that may be resolved [but this is speculation] by the L&P effect, i.e. the activity is there [modulating cosmic rays], but the compaction mechanism may operate less effectively and the spots are less visible, and we are fooled into believing that solar activity has died away.
The prediction of the sunspot cycle uses the polar magnetic field and thus predicts the magnetic regions of the next cycle. Typically there is a conversion factor of about 12 between number of regions and sunspot number SSN, so that SSN of 72 corresponds to 72/12 = 6 regions. This does not depend on the visibility of the spots. So we could, in principle have no spots at all [if L&P are correct], but still have 6 regions and the solar magnetic field would not be much different. A different measure of solar activity is the F10.7 radio flux. The flux depends on the magnetic field [but not on visibility of the spots], so if L&P are correct, we could have SSN = 0, but the F10.7 flux would still be about 130 [as is predicted for SC24].
So a Grand Minimum in terms of real solar activity is not such a big deal, even if it looks bad in terms of sunspots. Our prediction of a F10.7 flux of 130 would mean an equivalent SSN of 72 at times when the L&P effect would not operate strongly.
I’m sure that there will be people that will try to make much of this. What should should remember is that it is the magnetic field that is the true measure of solar activity.
Sekerob (07:48:09) :
where are the current 7,000 km deep lying jet streams currently at. Are they anywhere near the 22nd to push more spots up?
Not enough time has elapsed to determine any real change. The ’22 degrees’ is not a magic number. Just because that was a marker at the last minimum does not mean that it is the same this time around. We’ll have so wait some decades to see how it plays out.
Couldn’t agree more. Even in agriculturally prosperous times, growing fuel is a losing proposition as it is currently way too inefficient. Growing fuel does more harm than good. Try telling that to the Greenies though…
Probably should be for ” who-do” read “hoo-do”
Still not right! Engage brain before typing/posting.
For the FIRST “who-do” read “hoo-do”
Sorry Moderator
@ur momisugly Ron de Haan (08:50:49) :
You are sooooo right !!!
It is time for “The People” to take charge again! … we need to get back to “By the People, For the People”, and as quickly as possible.
There might be a problem updating the Mt. Wilson SOHO image.
There are wildfires on both sides of the SOHO.
Take a look at the other SOHO images, the ones looking down.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm
So as a non-scientist I enjoy reading your posts especially Leif, Rbateman, Anna V, M Alex to name a few. But no one is addressing the issue of past and present. You have a definition of a sunspot, but it has to include parameters of what was able to be witnessed in the past. If you aren’t counting apples to apples then you must establish a time frame when they are apples to apples, sort of a BC & AD type of count.
I don’t care how smart some of you people are but as a lay person there is now way you can convince me that some of the 6-12 Hour specs where counted in the past, absolutely no way.
And if the lack of sunspots is nothing but interesting why on earth are you bothering unless they have a direct relationship to something measurable other than pure speculation.
Am I wrong?
Sorry let me try that again 🙂
“It’s simple. When the Sun has more spots, it is more active and a little warmer.”
That’s not quite right. During this period on average more radiation from the sun reaches the Earth but when large sunspots are present the radiation is actually slightly less. Sunspots block radiation, thats why they appear darker, and reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth. It’s a pretty small variations though ….
Wow. Still a bit of snow left up there at Wilson. I visited there in spring 2007 and it was all gone already….
Stop wasting time on sunspots. Use your magic for finding Osama bin Laden or my missing luggage at Regan International.
Hi Leif,
Thanks for the nice graph with 10. 7, sunspots, TSI and MF.
Since F10.7 seems the most interesting right now:
I am curious to know if the trend lines are recalculated every time a point is added. Also, is the trend calculated only from the points on the screen, or are points to the left used as well. At this particular time, near a minimum, I wonder if the rapid fall before minimum leads to a fitted curve like you show to have an upward bias to the right.
I asked a few months ago if that last big sunspot might not be a fake out, and you said unlikely. Suppose F10.7 peaks at 90 or 100, would that mean something special or bad?
Can’t wait till global data for August is released. Should put the final nail (well ok, the final nail has already been hammered a long while back) into the solar induced warming hypothesis (fair to call it a hypothesis? it wasn’t even an educated guess).
No doubt they’ll be pointing their fingers to El Nino and short-circuiting logic and facts with their mantra of “UHI!”
The Engineer (05:09:31) : Saturday 29th August 2009…Hail storm here in Copenhagen. Not often you see that in august.
Is that a precursor Gore/ Chu effect?