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
Leif Svalgaard (22:47:01) :
“No, electric currents are by-products of plasma movements and magnetic fields. There are no electric fields in the rest-frame of a plasma.”
This is so much gibberish.
Electric fields have been observed & measured in space plasma.
Astronomy got on a wrong path and ran out to the end of a thin branch — now they don’t have the intellectual fortitude to acknowledge their error.
Thanks for all the answers regarding when to read Tmax/Tmin.
I should have been clearer & said…
When do I read & reset the max/min thermometer.
I was thinking local midnight, never using daylight saving.
DaveE.
E.M.Smith (12:05:08) :
Does anyone actually use the current temp reading? If so, what for?
DaveE.
This is about as dim a preview of the upcoming Sun as it gets:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/09/04/behind/euvi/195/1024/20090904_190530_n7euB_195.jpg
This being what we just had:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/09/04/ahead/euvi/195/1024/20090904_193530_n7euA_195.jpg
1024 still not fully dissipated to the South, and in the North the plage of what remains of 1025.
Current status of progess: Who wants to paint the picture?
Meanwhile astronomers discovered that the Sun is an amazingly complex magnetic body — while campfires are not noted for their magnetism. So heroic attempts have been made to conjure up a “dynamo” inside the Sun to match its weird magnetic behaviour. Not surprisingly, all attempts have failed. It is simply assumed there must be a hidden dynamo because the magnetic fields are there and no one believes they could come from outside the Sun. The mysteriously generated magnetic fields are called upon to explain most of the puzzling observations about the Sun. It fits the astrophysicists’ maxim, “when we don’t understand something, we blame it on magnetism.” They then show their ignorance of magnetism by describing electric discharge phenomena in terms of the ‘snapping’ and ‘reconnection’ of imaginary field lines. The father of plasma physics, Hannes Alfvén, wrote concerning the mistreatment of magnetism by astrophysicists, “Magnetospheric physics and solar wind physics today are no doubt in a chaotic state, and a major reason for this is that part of the published papers are science and part pseudoscience, perhaps even with a majority in the latter group.” The view of the Sun as an isolated, self-sufficient, self-immolating, magnetic body is the chief peculiarity and drawback of the campfire Sun.
Wal Thornhill
Invariant (12:40:23) :
If the Aurora is weaker in the absence of sunspots is likely that it was even weaker during Maunder Minimum?
The aurora depends on the Heliospheric Magnetic Field [and not on the visibility of the sunspots] and the HMF was not weaker during the MM than during cycles 14-15, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/TSI%20From%20McCracken%20HMF.pdf
Pamela Gray (18:15:52) :
I would disagree that the Sun affects day and night temperatures. That would be Earth’s fault. So many times we fall into thinking that resembles flat Earth thinking. Such as: We have day and then we have night and the Sun determines this. But the Sun always shines. It knows no day versus night. Thus to be more correct, the Sun has no measurable affect on day versus night temperatures.
I sincerely do agree. When variations in the our sun – one way or another -manages to alter temeperature here on earth, it is nonsense to argue that this should affevt the day more than the night. When I see this sort of argument from some famous AGW promoters, I must say that I am surprised by the lack of understanding for basic physical principles and intuition.
The thermal mass of the oceans is huge. Day to day (or night to night) variations are nonsense.
Archonix (06:34:16) :
Burning more coal will have a very real and immediate effect of providing warmth, which would be very handy in a cold climate. 😉
Agree completely! Just read all the other posts from bulldust, and I now see the humor – very funny indeed!
Yes, I agree. They are unreal limits of a system (the magnetic field in this case) created in the researcher’s mind for facilitating their study. It is the same with Higgs’ fields; our Universe is permeated by the continuum we recognize like Higgs’ fields. Nevertheless, we have parceled it into small quadrants which in any particular case would serve as boundaries of the studied system, mind-constructed, however.
Yes, I agree. They are unreal limits of a system (the magnetic field in this case) created in the researcher’s mind for facilitating their study. It is the same with Higgs’ fields; our Universe is permeated by the continuum we recognize like Higgs’ fields. Nevertheless, we have parceled it into small quadrants which in any particular case would serve as boundaries of the studied system, mind-constructed, however.
The “bangs”, which occur where the magnetic field is fluctuating, take place thanks to quantum tunneling. QT is evident given that the magnetic field transverses just in those places where the magnetic field density is reestablished.
I suppose that future models of the sun may require knowledge of the dynamics of hitherto unknown plasmatic interactions involving the fundamental forces (strong/weak nuclear, electromagnetic, & gravitational). Even though their field strengths are magnitudes apart on spatial scales, renormalization can result in interesting phenomena.
MikeE (17:55:11) :
This is clearly the result of technology… somehow sucking the magnetism out of the sun! There is an undeniable correlation with increasing technology and declining solar activity! When will we learn, that mung beans and hemp are the answer to a simpler life style that will prevent us from destroying the universe! The only logical solution, is to fire all our nuk’s at mercury in the hope of breaking it free of its orbit and launching it into the sun… which will re fire up the sun(somehow) and get things back on there natural path. 😉
Nah,
It is clearly related to 12-21-2012. As the solar system breaches the galactic plane, a new flop will occur with respect to solar polar orientation and the cycle will finally begin anew. 😉
Leif Svalgaard (09:25:55) :
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (07:33:14) :
“You never get up early enough to see the red Aurora over the mountain top”
So, Dass did mention the aurora after all. And sleet, too. And your translation is fine.
Is your tongue in your cheek, Leif? The aurora mentioned here looks like “the dawn” not the Aurora Borealis.
Nogw (13:53:34) :
Apparently, the both the campfire and the campfire theory run low on fuel when it comes time to shed the light in sufficient quantity to explain current events.
So, without further ado, here’s another way to express the equation:
“So when will solar cycle 24 really get going? It seems even the best minds of science don’t know for certain. A NOAA press release issued last year in April 2007 calls for Cycle 24 to be up to a year late, but they can’t decide on the intensity of SC24. That argument is ongoing.”
It sure is ongoing, only it’s going nowhere in a less-than-stellar fashion.
Maybe we should fire all our nukes into the Sun (if we can come up with an Ion Engine with sufficient speed to break orbital forces) in an attempt to jump start it, instead of blasting poor Mercury’s resonance.
So the magnetic field strength is waning — most likely it will wax, again.
But should it go on a prolonged minimum level of magnetic field strength, the question becomes obvious:
Why?
If the Sun is a nuclear furnace, what dynamic would cause the magnetic field to lose strength?
As I understand the hypothesis, the furnace is extremely steady, not subject to short-term instability — yet, loss of magnetic strength suggests, indeed, there is short-term instability of somekind at any rate.
So we have a contradiction between the model and observation & measurement.
When this kind of contradiction arises — something’s got to give — and it isn’t the observation & measurement.
There is a fallacy in the model.
Whether the fallacy is minor, allowing for a minor adjustment in the model, or is major, demanding a new model, needs to be determined.
“Trust us” won’t cut it any more.
Leif Svalgaard (22:47:01) :
“No, electric currents are by-products of plasma movements and magnetic fields. There are no electric fields in the rest-frame of a plasma.”
Tim Thompson is a recently retired astrophysicist from the JPL, Jet Propusion Laboratory. He was challenged by an interlocutor: “…somehow you’ve managed to convince yourself that electricity does not play a vital role in events in space.”
And Tim Thompson responded: “Wrong. I believe no such thing and neither does anyone else I know. Electric currents certainly do play a vital role in events in space, on every spatial scale from the smallest to the largest. They are incorporated into standard physical models of the solar system and cosmology. There are whole books and reams of papers on the topic. Electric currents do play a vital role in events in space without question.”
How come Leif Svalgaard seemingly at every turn does his best to minimize the role of electric currents in space?
And anybody who says otherwise is labelled as pseudo-scientific.
I think Svalgaard’s got I problem…apparently with Tim Thompson…
Mark Bowlin (06:42:13) :
Unfortunately, there are those who are using AGW as a ploy to advance other agendas, i.e., control. Oil running out is another. The answer is always more government (read elitist) control. Consider Katrina. Many of the problems were caused by the government (Corp of Engineers levies, mis allocation of funds related to hurricane protection, failure of State and City governments to do their jobs), but of course the answer is more government.
NW7US interviews Dr. Penn, discusses his prediction:
The NW7US Space Weather and Radio Podcast
[snip – Nasif with that accusatory and defamatory comment about Dr. Svalgaard, you are no longer welcome here. I’ve warned you, and yet you persist in making personal attacks. Your comments will no longer appear here. Moderators take note. – Anthony]
Richard M :
You say: “We all should keep in mind that the greenhouse effect could be masked by a cooling trend. Many estimates say we could get as much as 1.5C warming/century and we haven’t been seeing it. If it was masking a cooling trend then positive feedbacks would be negated as well.”
I am not a scientist. I ask your indulgence. Over what period does a trend become a trend? If a trend may be masked by another trend, which is the real long-term trend? The warming trend (claimed for greenhouse effect) may be being masked by a cooling trend, but the greenhouse effect may itself be masking a cooling trend. How can the masking and masked trends be identified as such? If cooling trends do in fact lower temperatures, then surely AGW theory would have to eliminate the possibility that there can be no future cooling trends long enough, or intense enough, to offset the greenhouse gas heating trend. How can this elimination be done, scientifically? I suppose that if the “future” is only the time until the icecaps melt, then what they are really saying is that no natural cooling trend will come in time to avert that catastrophe.
Can you cite an article in which the various contributions to the recent warming of natural warming forces, including the sun directly and indirectly, which are individually dismissed by the AGW theorists as trivial, or insufficient to explain the recent warming, have been aggregated?
“Leif Svalgaard (22:47:01) :
“No, electric currents are by-products of plasma movements and magnetic fields. There are no electric fields in the rest-frame of a plasma.”
”
Leif is right. A plasma has balanced charges, at least until magnetic fields or whatever get it moving. So a plasma, in its rest frame, ie. when it’s stationary, has no net electric or magnetic field.
Quantum tunnelling is an effect where a particle has a finite chance of tunnelling through a potential barrier that is of the order of the Schrödinger wavelength of the particle. Since the Sun is hot all particles have high thermal energy hence v. v. short wavelengths below the size of the atom and nearly the size of the nucleus.
The idea of QT in the Sun seems far-fetched.
tarpon (08:47:54) :
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.
The solar proxy records very clearly show a Solar modulation roughly every 200 years, nothing new going on here.
We can also fully rely on the solar proxies, when plotted together 14C & 10Be almost mirror each other.
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/solanki_sharp.png
If the proxy records are now vindicated it poses a couple of intriguing questions. Has TSI varied by more than the heralded 0.1% in the past and if solar grand minimums occur on a very regular basis (around every 200 years) through eternity how does the Babcock model with its “crap shoot” core explain this?
REPLY – It must do. Tmax is almost always during the day and Tmin is almost always at night for any given location. ~ Evan]
Remember that correlation is not proof of causation. If you check daily temp graphs, there is also a twelve hour (+/- a couple hours) correlation between the sun’s high point in the sky and Tmin. Tmax probably has a similar correlation with nadir, though I haven’t examined the relationship in detail.
Somebody got me thinking on present consequences of L&P.
By 2010, going by the 1996 L&P low reading of 1875 representing a delta of -400, we could potentially see half of all spots rendered beflow 1800 gauss and therefore invisible.
No need to wait until 2015. All that is necessary is for the spots to clump/cluster up at the low end of the total delta so far observed.
It would even be possible for the year 2010 to ring up totally spotless.
Right now, how do we tell how many spots this year have fallen victim to 1800 Gauss Magnetic Arrest if we never see them?
Sandy (16:28:23) :
“Leif Svalgaard (22:47:01) :“No, electric currents are by-products of plasma movements and magnetic fields. There are no electric fields in the rest-frame of a plasma.”
Leif is right. A plasma has balanced charges, at least until magnetic fields or whatever get it moving. So a plasma, in its rest frame, ie. when it’s stationary, has no net electric or magnetic field.
Couple questions –
Is a moving plasma by itself an electric current?
In an ion drive exhaust, we have ionized xenon. Does that positively charged stream have an electric field in its rest frame?
Mark Three (16:27:31) :
“I am not a scientist. I ask your indulgence. Over what period does a trend become a trend? If a trend may be masked by another trend, which is the real long-term trend? The warming trend (claimed for greenhouse effect) may be being masked by a cooling trend, but the greenhouse effect may itself be masking a cooling trend. How can the masking and masked trends be identified as such? If cooling trends do in fact lower temperatures, then surely AGW theory would have to eliminate the possibility that there can be no future cooling trends long enough, or intense enough, to offset the greenhouse gas heating trend. How can this elimination be done, scientifically? I suppose that if the “future” is only the time until the icecaps melt, then what they are really saying is that no natural cooling trend will come in time to avert that catastrophe.”
All good questions. I’m not a scientist either. But, mathematics is my background. A trend can be computed over any time interval. Whether it’s really a trend is always open to debate. There is nothing magical in scientific predictions. In many cases (like AGW) they are simply educated WAGs based on incomplete information. So, to decide what to believe, it becomes more a matter of educated analysis of what various proponents are saying. If you’ve lived for many decades you’ve had an opportunity to see many of these predictions. I think this is one reason skepticism increases with age.
“Can you cite an article in which the various contributions to the recent warming of natural warming forces, including the sun directly and indirectly, which are individually dismissed by the AGW theorists as trivial, or insufficient to explain the recent warming, have been aggregated.”
IPCC AR4. However, I wouldn’t waste my time since much of the content has already been negated by nature.