From NASA News: Are Sunspots Disappearing?
September 3, 2009: The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. The quiet has dragged out for more than two years, prompting some observers to wonder, are sunspots disappearing?
“Personally, I’m betting that sunspots are coming back,” says researcher Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. But, he allows, “there is some evidence that they won’t.”
Penn’s colleague Bill Livingston of the NSO has been measuring the magnetic fields of sunspots for the past 17 years, and he has found a remarkable trend. Sunspot magnetism is on the decline:
Above: Sunspot magnetic fields measured by Livingston and Penn from 1992 – Feb. 2009 using an infrared Zeeman splitting technique. [more]
“Sunspot magnetic fields are dropping by about 50 gauss per year,” says Penn. “If we extrapolate this trend into the future, sunspots could completely vanish around the year 2015.”
This disappearing act is possible because sunspots are made of magnetism. The “firmament” of a sunspot is not matter but rather a strong magnetic field that appears dark because it blocks the upflow of heat from the sun’s interior. If Earth lost its magnetic field, the solid planet would remain intact, but if a sunspot loses its magnetism, it ceases to exist.
“According to our measurements, sunspots seem to form only if the magnetic field is stronger than about 1500 gauss,” says Livingston. “If the current trend continues, we’ll hit that threshold in the near future, and solar magnetic fields would become too weak to form sunspots.””This work has caused a sensation in the field of solar physics,” comments NASA sunspot expert David Hathaway, who is not directly involved in the research. “It’s controversial stuff.”
The controversy is not about the data. “We know Livingston and Penn are excellent observers,” says Hathaway. “The trend that they have discovered appears to be real.” The part colleagues have trouble believing is the extrapolation. Hathaway notes that most of their data were taken after the maximum of Solar Cycle 23 (2000-2002) when sunspot activity naturally began to decline. “The drop in magnetic fields could be a normal aspect of the solar cycle and not a sign that sunspots are permanently vanishing.”
Penn himself wonders about these points. “Our technique is relatively new and the data stretches back in time only 17 years. We could be observing a temporary downturn that will reverse itself.”
The technique they’re using was pioneered by Livingston at the NASA-supported McMath-Pierce solar telescope near Tucson. He looks at a spectral line emitted by iron atoms in the sun’s atmosphere. Sunspot magnetic fields cause the line to split in two—an effect called “Zeeman splitting” after Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman who discovered the phenomenon in the 19th century. The size of the split reveals the intensity of the magnetism.
Right: Zeeman splitting of spectral lines from a strongly-magnetized sunspot. [more]
Astronomers have been measuring sunspot magnetic fields in this general way for nearly a century, but Livingston added a twist. While most researchers measure the splitting of spectral lines in the visible part of the sun’s spectrum, Livingston decided to try an infra-red spectral line. Infrared lines are much more sensitive to the Zeeman effect and provide more accurate answers. Also, he dedicated himself to measuring a large number of sunspots—more than 900 between 1998 and 2005 alone. The combination of accuracy and numbers revealed the downturn.
If sunspots do go away, it wouldn’t be the first time. In the 17th century, the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotlessness known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists. The sunspot drought began in 1645 and lasted until 1715; during that time, some of the best astronomers in history (e.g., Cassini) monitored the sun and failed to count more than a few dozen sunspots per year, compared to the usual thousands.
“Whether [the current downturn] is an omen of long-term sunspot decline, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, remains to be seen,” Livingston and Penn caution in a recent issue of EOS. “Other indications of solar activity suggest that sunspots must return in earnest within the next year.”
Whatever happens, notes Hathaway, “the sun is behaving in an interesting way and I believe we’re about to learn something new.”
h/t to Michael Ronayne
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“From what I gather, Tmax is usually a bit after noon and Tmin is usually a bit after midnight.”
This is not the case in my experience. The temp usually peaks hours after sun has been in the highest position. Also it is often coldest right before or during sunrise.
Here in trondheim, norway the temp in summer usually peaks somewhere between 15:00-17:00, while solar noon is at around 13.
So if its all about the solar cycle why was pan evaporation dropping since the 50s, right up till the 90s when it began to pick up again?
Why were the 50s not unequivocaly the warmest decades for land temperatures?
I don’t see how this constitutes a firm long term trend. Does this happen at every minima?
Here we go again. Sunspots have been declining for the past couple decades; therefore, sunspots may disappear completely and permanently. Here in Ohio we haven’t had rain for almost a week; therefore, I’m predicting that my neighborhood will likely become a desert by 2012. I just waterproofed my basement too……THAT was a waste of hard-earned cash…..
par5 (00:39:04) :
An updated paper was published this year in EOS, see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/15/livingston-and-penn-in-eos-are-sunspots-different-during-this-solar-minimum/
I don’t have much trouble with Science rejecting the paper. It would have been stronger if there had been proposed mechanisms, a longer record, or the implications not so remarkable. I think they should have submitted to Icarus or other astronomical journal instead of Science.
Now that things are mostly following the trend (2018 is the latest target), a paper looking at statistics and how they’re holding up, and given the current anomalous solar minimum, it’s easy to argue this is a much better time to publish anyway.
Of course, it’s easy to find other statistical papers that should be given a status of “latest update” instead of “the ice is going to be gone by 2030!” (or 2010) or whatever).
Very well stated. I would add only that it is just as true if you subtract the phrase, “in the face of a very real and possibly catastrophic cooling event, which will occur by 2015.” “A sane society wishing to maintain a technological civilization” would be doing all that you say (and more) in any event, because that is the path to continued progress, economic growth, and the improvement in living standards of all the world.
I think that if the American people were made aware of the stark reality that their government has been taken over by “an anti-technology religious cult,” a good part of them would be in just as high dudgeon as the prospect of socialized medicine has engendered.
/Mr Lynn
Claude Harvey (23:32:59) :
I don’t know anyone who tracks the Farmer’s Almanac, I tend to ignore it. The better known Old Farmer’s Almanac hasn’t published yet, but they will soon. Their predictions last year were strongly affected by Joe D’Aleo’s work and verified well in the northeast and north central regions at least. The special article they published, apparently taken down recently, was by far the most scientific thing they’ve ever published. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/28/skeptical-article-on-climate-in-the-old-farmers-almanac/
See also
http://www.almanac.com/content/influence-solar-activity-weather
http://www.almanac.com/content/teleconnections-and-oscillations
Caveat – one of these had an annoying advertising pop up that tried so show my Linux system was running a virus-ridden Windows install. I don’t have time this morning to hunt it down and call Yankee publishing to complain vehemently about it.
Nasif Nahle (21:59:13) :
Do you have smaller versions of that new plasma welding machine that runs without power and produces power instead ?
Leif Svalgaard (22:37:01) :
Not so fast. I never said that the sun is the primary driver. We’ll leave that at the oceans.
My point was that we’ve got a bunch of world “leaders” and some really bad, but influential scientists [Michael Mann et al] with their heads up their CO2 ——, while there are other drivers they should be looking to…in trying to figure out where the Earth is going next in its climate.
My point is that while all these cats are studying what would happen if the world warms…very few of them are looking at what might happen…if the world cools.
I really don’t think these people get it.
Al Gore has never recanted of his Day After Tommorrow-like Inconvenient Truth.
Michael Mann still plays with his hockey stick.
James Hansen still galavants around the globe trying to stop coal.
Nope…they don’t get it. Fear the cold, not the warmth.
Personally, if I were them, I would want to accidentally get caught with my pants down in a lush, warm, CO2 rich environment, as opposed to in an icy wind on the frozen river Thames.
Ugh……bad picture bad picture. TMI. Don’t need that picture in my brain.
Next thought….LOL
So…if sunspots disappear, and even if they do for 75 years…they’ll be back.
The sun has been around for a few billion. Us? 1 to 4 score.
No reason for alarm. Just level-headed scientific observation…and even more level-headed preparation for the future, wherever that may take us.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Invariant (00:09:12) :
> Bulldust (23:46:27) :
Now that we have established *cough* that we are heading into (at least) a Maunder Minimum, is it too early to suggest a policy shift to burning more coal?
My *political* opinion is that saving the rain forest and such is a good “side effect” of the current “climate crisis”. However, based on my experience over many years with nonlinear multiphase flow simulations, I do not think we have evidence to say that CO2 is actually contributing in a significant way. Thus burning more coal may or may not save us from colder climate – we do not know. We might as well argue that less burning of coal should save us from colder climate.
Burning more coal will have a very real and immediate effect of providing warmth, which would be very handy in a cold climate. 😉
rbateman (18:01:08) :
“And that something new we are about to learn may not be what we would like to see.”
Ain’t that the truth?
The climate debate’s not unlike the tug of war between being a guy and a dad. As a guy, you’re fascinated to see how many raisins your 3 year old son can stuff in his mouth; as a dad, you recognize it might not be a good idea (even if he sets a new world record).
In the climate argument, there are extremely polarized positions ranging from fire to ice with proponents actively rooting for a particular outcome just to prove a point. No one should want another Maunder or Dalton (and the proposed attending climate), yet there is a fascination over whether the theories are true and the satisfaction (for some) of being right – even though the consequences might be severe. Conversely, no one should wish for rapid sea rise (or any of the other 10,000 direly predicted consequences of AGW), but I suspect that there are some warmistas who desperately want it just to say “told ya so” (and to keep the grant money coming in of course).
DaveE (17:55:40) and Evanjones, etc:
With no fronts moving in or out, T max is generally two-three hours after noon (lag because of Tmin just before dawn) and Tmin is just before the dawn (all night to cool off etc. I seem to recall reading that it was the same on Mars.
Regarding Dr. Hathaway’s comment that we are going to learn something from the quiet sun, I’ve been made into a cynic over the years. Teachable moments most often get rationalized out of existence by the extant specialists in the field. I, myself, have already learned something from the blank sun: its the best scanner for finding bits of dirt and dead pixels on my monitor.
F*ck me, how can any scientist look at a plot of data only a few years long, taken from a natural system with a lifetime measured in billions of years and try to stick a straight line through it. Even more amazing, how can they make projections for a trend to zero.
Clucking bell, I could take their extrapolation and predict that in a few years, not only will there be no sunspots but that the line will go negative and we will have ‘anti-sunspots’ or sunzits as I shall now name them…
Excuse me while I go and bang my head against something hard and sharp…
Cheers
Mark
The L&P paper is not new but is it a news headline again because NASA has commented on it?
BTW with August having a SN of Zero has the candidate month of sunspot minimum moved to Jan 09?
“savethesharks (06:17:22) :
Leif Svalgaard (22:37:01) :
Not so fast. I never said that the sun is the primary driver. We’ll leave that at the oceans.”
What warms the oceans? O_o
It’s interesting that all of the field strengths for the past 3 yrs appear to be on the POSITIVE side of the linear fit…
Roger Carr (03:05:29) :
Now I am waiting to hear if Petter Dass mentioned rain…
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordlands_Trompet
The Trumpet of Nordland (“Nordlands Trompet”) from ~1670 is a topographical poem written by Petter Dass.
“The poem depicts Petter Dass nordland nature and the northern meteorological conditions as the midnight sun. He points to the birds, animals and trading businesses, and everything else that exists in the region, such as the capture of puffins”
One of the poems from “Nordlands Trompet” about the weather etc.
http://dikt.org/Nordlands_Horizont,_Elementer_og_Veyrligt
The language style is very archaic and will not translate easily from Norwegian (but Leif is Danish and the language style was more like Danish then).
He talks about the “Ulidelig Frysen og stormende Slud” (“Unbearably cold and stormy sleet”). He also mentions the Sun and the planets Saturn and Jupiter, so clearly it wasn’t raining all the time 🙂
But I wonder if the poem actually contains a direct reference to the Aurora:
“Du tilmed og aldrig saa tiilig staaer op,
At dig jo før høyt over Biergenes Top
Er runden Aurora den røde.”
Which perhaps will translate into something like
“You never get up early enough to see the red Aurora over the mountain top”
coaldust (00:33:36) :
The Penn quote indicates that the magnetic field strength is decreasing. I call that “going away”? Perhaps you mean that the magnetic field decreased below that required for a spot to form, but didn’t completely go away? Could you clarify please? Thanks in advance.
There is a difference between field and flux. The flux is field strength times area, and is what counts. Sunspots are concentrations of flux, i.e small areas with high field strength formed by the coalescence of yet smaller flux elements. When the field strength is 1500 Gauss or above, it is strong enough to hinder the convection that brings heat up from below and the spot looks darker than the surroundings. So the ‘darkness’ of a spot depends on how much the field is stronger than 1500 Gauss. Imagine we have 10 spots with field strength 1400 Gauss and one spot with field strength 2000 Gauss, then the total flux [assuming all spots have the same area, A] for the first ten [and invisible spots] is 1400*10*A, and for the lone, but visible, spot 2000*1*A, or seven times less. So all it takes to have a Maunder Minimum is for the field strength to fall just below 1500 Gauss [and not go to zero]. Then there can be lots of flux [as required for the cosmic ray modulation], but no visible spots. We don’t know if this is what actually happened, but it is a viable explanation.
What’s the status of the AMO at present (translated please)?
Michael Ronayne (17:12:19) : The whole western “civilization” is
“….in the control of an anti-technology religious cult, just because not of “big oil” but “big left” which, after the fall of the berlin’s wall have sought refuge in the UN, the academia, and “progressive” political parties. There are mixed with very lucrative interests in the middle, like carbon credits/shares market…in short, quite a real pandemic infection which has the help of some vector insects like WWF, etc. etc.
But don’t dismay in the effort, the Sun comes in the rescue..surely an early winter will complicate Copenhaguen guests (the dammned “Gore Effect”-which obviously works contrary to “Watts Effect”-).
@noaaprogrammer
“Does the sun have external sources of fuel – small though it may be? (Sometimes a comet ends up going into the sun.) How much matter does Its gravitational force pull in per some unit of time? Since the sun is a fusion furnace, any element below iron on the periodic chart should provide it energy.”
The sun is losing mass at the rate of about 4 metric tons per second. Far in excess of anything that might conceivably fall into it. However the sun is massive beyond any rational thinking and is only expected to burn off about 1% of it’s mass during it’s 10 billion year life.
The sun is not, currently, hot or dense enough to fuse anything other than hydrogen. A good thing too. When the rate of hydrogen fusion drops low enough that it can no longer support the mass of the sun the core will contract and become hot and dense enough to fuse helium. When that happens the higher temperature will cause the outer layers of the sun to swell up. It will become a red-giant. At point the Earth will be toast. We have about 5 billion years before that happens.
Gah! that should be 4 *million* metric tons per second.
An interesting article at:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/telegraphs-ran-on-electric-air-in-crazy-magnetic-storm-150-years-ago/ “The Carrington Event”
Excerpt; The data on how often huge storms occur is scarce. Ice cores are the main evidence we have outside human historical documents. Charged particles can interact with nitrogen in the atmosphere, creating nitrides. The increased concentration of those molecules can be detected by looking at ice cores, which act like a logbook of the atmosphere at a given time. Over the last 500 years of this data, the 1859 event was twice as big as anything else.
Does this fit into the L&P, MM, SC23-24, decline/recovery conversation in a loop ‘dynamic limit of stability’ sort of way? More learning experiences to come I’m thinking.
Hat tip to: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/
J. D. Lindskog
Man’s use of electromagnetic devices has increased exponentially during this time frame. It’s obvious that man has affected the magnetic properties of the entire universe, resulting in a lack of sunspots. Scientists who subscribe to this explanation belong to a group named the Absentia Sun Spot Evolution Society.
This group is dedicated to establishing a UN panel titled The Helios Interference Experimental Foundation. This panel will implement a program of Reducing Offworld Byproducts to eliminate this threat.
A warning to all who are interested in true science! Don’t be ASSES and let THEIFs ROB you!
Bob Shapiro (20:40:19) My own empirical/anecdotal observations agree with your time assessment of Tmin/Tmax. I have a problem with Tmin/Tmax averaging though. For example, if on March 10th Tmin=40°F and Tmax=80°F, and again on June 10th Tmin=40° and Tmax=80°F, they will have the same average, but do not represent the same amount of heat. By June we are looking at more hours of day, read warm, and fewer hours of night, read cool. An hourly reading on each of these two days, averaged for each day would show this, (Tmin/Tmax)/2 does not.
Isn’t it quite possible that ‘no sunspot zones’ of time has existed many times before, and we just don’t know? Isn’t the invention of the telescope important to knowing that answer? So this may be the second time this has happens since that invention?
My two cents — Could stars naturally behave in cycles, blaze for a while, then relax, no spots, bring up more fuel, then blaze again? I we only had instruments that could tell, over a longer time-span, we may know.
What we know about the universe, you could write a book, what we don’t know, you could fill a library.