From Spaceweather.com
The sun is showing signs of life. There are no fewer than five active regions on the sun’s surface, shown here in an extreme ultraviolet photo taken this morning by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):
Each circle contains a sunspot or proto-sunspot belonging to new Solar Cycle 24. After two years of record-low sunspot numbers and many month-long stretches of utter quiet, this is a notable outbreak. Whether it heralds a genuine trend or merely marks a temporary, statistical uptick in activity remains to be seen.
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If the sun doesn’t go back blank within the next 2 days, we will not break last years spotless count. bummer.
“meemoe_uk (02:41:14) :
If there’s concerns sunspot numbers are being set too high, do we get a new sunspot skeptic blog called sunspotAudit ? Watch out or the realClimate lot will get there first!”
Refer to:
http://translate.google.co.za/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://daltonsminima.wordpress.com/&ei=AHWVSrv_K5zLjAfom5zbDQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://daltonsminima.wordpress.com/%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
and:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
These counts in my opinion, are much more accurate and paint a clear picture of the current shift from the modern solar maximum of 1935-2005 to the new minimum of 2005 – ?.
Each spot is carefully analyzed.
This continuously updated plot by Leif
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
shows that 24 has not yet reached the height of the last 23 large bunch, sometime in the beginning of 2008.
Only the MF in this plot has not picked up yet, and I understand it has a six month delay. If the minimum was end of 2008 beginning 2009, it should have started picking up by now. Interesting times for sun watchers, even amateur ones.
meemoe_uk (02:41:14) :
If there’s concerns sunspot numbers are being set too high, do we get a new
sunspot skeptic blog called sunspotAudit ? Watch out or the realClimate lot will get
there first!
Geoff Sharp already beat them to it with the Layman’s Sunspot count!
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Great idea by the way Geoff. I rather compare apples and apples.
re: the fear of the consequences of a minimum.
Personally, I fear Big Brother more. Mankind will survive the “Bosch-like world” of solar funk. Persevering through that sort of stuff is how we got as far as we’ve gotten.
A boot in the face forever is another thing.
Better Bosch than Big Brother.
That 5 spots come up almost simultaneously, all several hundred thousand miles apart, is quite remarkable. Clearly any common cause must lie deep under the surface.
tallbloke (23:52:09) :
I really hope the sun is waking up. It’s been getting too cold for my liking. Snow staying on the ground for a week before christmas hasn’t been seen where I live for decades.
If you check out the world climate widget you might notice that the November global (UAH) temperature anomaly is +0.50, i.e. the warmest November in the record. There’s a pretty fair chance that January 2010 will be the warmest January on record and an even chance that 2010 will be the warmest year on record. While the US may be a bit chilly at the moment the same cannot be aid for the rest of the world.
If we are getting record anomalies while the sun is in a deep slumber I ‘m a bit fearful about what might happen if it actually starts to become more active. The solar/climate link is becoming increasingly less believable.
Philip T. Downman (23:54:50) :
Now how is the magnetic fieldstrength. Is the Livingston & Penn forecast broken now? Or are they still on track though more numerous?
L&P says nothing about the number of spots. They are still on track [see below]
SSam (23:56:32) :
It would be interesting to see what the magnetic intensity is of 1035 and it’s diminutive cousins. Is there an updated source for Livingston and Penn’s analysis work?
This plot is always up to date: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
1035 and friends are the rightmost data points and they span are right where they should be.
vukcevic (02:12:52) :
Polar fields are still stuck in the grove, no sign of turning.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
With new activity, the polar fields begin their slow decline. They have by now dropped 25% since mid-2006 [pink arrow]: http://www.leif.org/research/WSO%20Polar%20Fields.png
meemoe_uk (02:41:14) :
If there’s concerns sunspot numbers are being set too high
The current activity can always be seen here:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The little black specks on the lower [green] graph are the SIDC counts which [by definition] are only 60% of the SWPC count.
More Sun Spots Climate Scientist Prays Answered
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6864759/Crowds-celebrate-winter-solstice-at-Stonehenge.html
At the Sun no one cares about our taxes
trolls must have been huddled up under the bridge in a desperate prayer meeting
trolls must have been huddled up under the bridge in a desperate prayer meeting for sun spots
meemoe_uk (02:41:14) :
If there’s concerns sunspot numbers are being set too high, do we get a new sunspot skeptic blog called sunspotAudit ? Watch out or the realClimate lot will get there first!
The blog you are looking for is called
daltonsminima.wordpress.com
It is in Italian.
Anyone noticed the Planetary A Index is still very small despite more sunspot activity? Does this tie into Penn & Livingston’s work?
Analysis / significance anyone?
http://www.solen.info/solar/
If the negative correlation between length of the sunspot cycle and subsequent temperature holds up, the long SC 23 means cooling is in the pipeline for the next decade.
http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf
Capn Jack: Obligatory Simpson’s quote: “From the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.” –Mr. Burns
Jeff L (05:06:06) :
Anyone noticed the Planetary A Index is still very small despite more sunspot activity? Does this tie into Penn & Livingston’s work?
Analysis / significance anyone
Not to mention a similar result with the solar wind….
P Gosselin (23:54:25) :
But looking at the latest image, there is not really much to see.
The image from SOHO is “the latest” and has 12/22/09 as the date.
This may be the date of the posting and not the date of the picture or simply a mistake.
Mauna Loa site shows a lot of activity in several spectrums on 12/21 that could not fade that quickly in a day. And the pic is very different than SOHO
http://mlso.hao.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/mlso_homepage.cgi
SIDC report of 12/21 shows a large number
SOLAR INDICES FOR 21 Dec 2009
WOLF NUMBER CATANIA : 058
10CM SOLAR FLUX : 083
http://www.sidc.be/products/meu
vucevik, should the average for the Stanford graph not be (N+S)/2 instead of their (N-S)/2?
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
John M Reynolds
P Gosselin (23:54:25) :
But looking at the latest image, there is not really much to see.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
It is the Watt effect in reverse! 🙂
IMHO, the sunspot/solar wind/cosmic ray/cloud connection to average global surface temperature is a multidecadal effect. To see the climate change influence of the sun, one has to look at the strength of several 11-year cycles and then factor in a delay. A few more spots now mean next to nothing!
The current cycle is well below average and, as I understand it, the next cycle is forecast to be weaker than this one. These weaker cycles will allow more cosmic rays to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a slight up tick in the amount of low-level clouds over the next several decades. This will result in slightly less sunlight warming the worlds oceans which, in turn, will result in slightly cooler atmospheric temperatures around the middle of the 21st century.
In the meantime, the negative phases of the PDO and AMO will continue our current cooling trend. It is when these ocean cycles trend positive again in a few decades that the solar influence will begin to be noticable, preventing much in the way of warming.
CO2, of course, will have little impact on global temperatures, just like it has throughout the history of the planet.
John Finn:
“The US may be a bit chilly” and “the same cannot be said of the rest of the world”.
A bit chilly is an understatement and in my part of the world (Europe), It is bloody freezing.
Jim Clarke (05:48:51) :
IMHO, the sunspot/solar wind/cosmic ray/cloud connection to average global surface temperature is a multidecadal effect. To see the climate change influence of the sun, one has to look at the strength of several 11-year cycles and then factor in a delay. A few more spots now mean next to nothing!
I recall reading a peer-reviewed paper (can’t remember the reference now) where the author calculated a seven year delay between slight changes in solar output and its effect on the earth’s surface temperature. It struck me at the time that with an eleven year sun spot cycle the effects would mostly be lost in the wash; unless you tied together five very large cycles or if you had a deep minimum.
Mike Ramsey
John Finn
Perhaps you didn’t notice that October was very near the coldest ever and if not for the wildly inflated corrupted surface records would have been colder? I seriously think there is a warming bias even in the UAH record aren’t they standardized using ground stations that we know have a bias?
As for 09 as a whole being warm… how much of that is due to phantom imaginary warming in Siberia or warming in Canada due to eliminating stations in cold places? 120%? . As for 2010, keep saying warmer sooner or later you’re likely to be right.
Obviously the world is growing much warmer that is why we have the huge caravans of people fleeing from Florida and Texas and Arizona and flooding into Michigan and Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota.
I have always been curious about jet stream behavior but am now adding Arctic Oscillations to my daily study. This in addition to oceanic SST and trade wind conditions.
I think at the moment, the P and A long-term ocean oscillations are in neutral, not in a decidedly cold or warm multi-decadel phase. The Pacific is in a moderate El Nino condition but that may be one of those blips during a cold long-term phase. It’s just too early to tell. What is interesting is the Arctic oscillation and jet stream behavior. We seem to be having a mix of north and south jet stream tracts with a high degree of loopiness, along with a move south and reverse rotation to the Arctic Oscillation, a position thought to be necessary for Arctic ice to build up to average and above levels and send brrrrr cold temps our way.