From NASA News: Solar ‘Current of Fire’ Speeds Up
What in the world is the sun up to now?
In today’s issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years.
“I believe this could explain the unusually deep solar minimum we’ve been experiencing,” says Hathaway. “The high speed of the conveyor belt challenges existing models of the solar cycle and it has forced us back to the drawing board for new ideas.”
The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to complete one circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle.
Above: An artist’s concept of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt. [larger image]
Hathaway has been monitoring the conveyor belt using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The top of the belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up knots of solar magnetism and carrying them toward the poles. SOHO is able to track those knots—Hathaway calls them “magnetic elements”–and thus reveal the speed of the underlying flow.
“It’s a little like measuring the speed of a river on Earth by clocking the leaves and twigs floating downstream,” Hathaway explains.SOHO’s dataset extends all the way back to 1996 and spans a complete solar cycle. Last year, Lisa Rightmire, a student of Hathaway from the University of Memphis, spent the entire summer measuring magnetic elements. When she plotted their speeds vs. time, she noticed how fast the conveyor belt has been going.
A note about “fast”: The Great Conveyor Belt is one of the biggest things in the whole solar system and by human standards it moves with massive slowness. “Fast” in this context means 10 to 15 meters per second (20 to 30 miles per hour). A good bicyclist could easily keep up.
Below: The velocity of the Great Conveyor Belt (a.k.a. “meridianal flow”) since 1996. Note the higher speeds after ~2004. credit: Hathaway and Rightmire, 2010. [larger image]
The speed-up was surprising on two levels.
First, it coincided with the deepest solar minimum in nearly 100 years, contradicting models that say a fast-moving belt should boost sunspot production. The basic idea is that the belt sweeps up magnetic fields from the sun’s surface and drags them down to the sun’s inner dynamo. There the fields are amplified to form the underpinnings of new sunspots. A fast-moving belt should accelerate this process.
So where have all the sunspots been? The solar minimum of 2008-2009 was unusually deep and now the sun appears to be on the verge of a weak solar cycle.
Instead of boosting sunspots, Hathaway believes that a fast-moving Conveyor Belt can instead suppress them “by counteracting magnetic diffusion at the sun’s equator.” He describes the process in detail in Science (“Variations in the Sun’s Meridional Flow over a Solar Cycle,” 12 March 2010, v327, 1350-1352).
The second surprise has to do with the bottom of the Conveyor Belt.
SOHO can only clock the motions of the visible top layer. The bottom is hidden by ~200,000 kilometers of overlying plasma. Nevertheless, an estimate of its speed can be made by tracking sunspots.
“Sunspots are supposedly rooted to the bottom of the belt,” says Hathaway. “So the motion of sunspots tells us how fast the belt is moving down there.”
He’s done that—plotted sunspot speeds vs. time since 1996—and the results don’t make sense. “While the top of the conveyor belt has been moving at record-high speed, the bottom seems to be moving at record-low speed. Another contradiction.”
Above: An artist’s concept of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Launched in Feb. 2010, SDO will be able to look inside the sun to study the conveyor belt in greater detail, perhaps solving the mysteries Hathaway and Rightmire have uncovered. [larger image]
Could it be that sunspots are not rooted to the bottom of the Conveyor Belt, after all? “That’s one possibility” he notes. “Sunspots could be moving because of dynamo waves or some other phenomenon not directly linked to the belt.”
What researchers really need is a good look deep inside the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched in February 2010, will provide that when its instruments come online later this year. SDO is able to map the sun’s interior using a technique called helioseismology. SOHO can do the same thing, but not well enough to trace the Great Conveyor Belt all the way around. SDO’s advanced sensors might reveal the complete circuit.
And then…? “It could be the missing piece we need to forecast the whole solar cycle,” says Hathaway.
Stay tuned for that.
Leif
You realize that I had the advantage of reading the excellent investigative studies at http://www.leif.org. None of which recruit dispute. What is however asserted is that the mechanisms driving the solar dynamo are dependent upon its location in the galaxy (points that are obviously known). I feel therefore that most are quite confident that data obtained from SDO will correspond with the data events registered by Voyager and next generation Voyagers….As will the continuation of earthbound events associated with the 700 years young Ice Age.
………………CRS, Dr.P.H. (13:34:48) :
The climate change crowd seem to think we are ignorant, Neanderthal “deniers” without science…..quite honestly, I see MUCH more honest peer review going on these comment threads than in the published climatology literature!
————————–
Truth be known i’ve got to plead guilty here to the ignorant, Neanderthal, denier
bits but thanks to the great brain trust on here…i’ve got science!
David H seems like a nice guy but im supprised he still has a job. Besides telling us about satellite data, what else of what he does is correct? all his predictions, models, knowledge of the sun all seem to be wrong.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (wrt):
Ross McKitrick on the development of poor countries and coal (and)
John Christy on the morals of energy use for development
It’s hard to disagree with these positions.
andy adkins (15:02:06) :
What is however asserted is that the mechanisms driving the solar dynamo are dependent upon its location in the galaxy (points that are obviously known)
Your problem is this statement:
andy adkins (11:33:06) :
the galactic environment that the sun encounters changes its mechanisms of energy action. The sun’s core becomes protonically heavier
This is complete nonsense. The energy generation is the p-p chain that depends on temperature in the core which is turn depends on the weight of the outer layers, none of which change, on timescales under a million years and none of which depends on the position in the Galaxy.
Carla (14:14:02) :
The Group W cult should realize that the galactic magnetism can’t travel upstream in a Mach-11 supersonic solar wind. So nothing there, move on 🙂
bob paglee (14:09:11) :
The upper ellipse in the artist’s concept shows an arrowhead that correctly indicates the direction of flow, but the arrowhead on the lower figure appears to be incorrect
The flow is shown by the yellow curves, and the arrows are correct on those.
The wobbly black curve and the black ellipses are meant to show the direction and distortion by differential rotation of the magnetic field, not the plasma flow.
“Sunspot Number 20”
is just the sunspot number divided by 20, to make the scales compatible.
There appears to be either a wild point
The data are noisy, so show spurious peaks and dips here and there.
For some commenting here who seem to want a thorough refresh on basic physics, including: Celestial Mechanics, Heat and Thermodynamics, Planetary Photometry, Stellar Atmospheres
Search for:
site:astrowww.phys.uvic.ca “J. B. Tatum” Physics topics
Hi Leif,
You are at least one who steps up and explains what it is. But I don’t see any attempt and explaining the Livingston and Penn theory in any way. But to be fair so is none else. I would like to know how the L & P theory fits in the dynamics of solar activity, since this may explain the ” all knowing Maunder Minimum” as some have suggested. But thank you for your input.
I’ve been curious about the postulated impact of planetary tidal forces upon the sun, resulting in sunspot variability. A good read:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-paper-from-ian-wilson.html
Leif? We’ve discussed galactic positioning, transient clouds etc. This would seem to be a fairly easy thing to calculate, based upon planetary mass, periodicity, sunspot cycles etc. I’ve seen papers going back to the 1920’s on the topic.
Thanks to CTM by the way, you are doing a yeoman’s job!
So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels? Seriously, I concede completely that errors were made by AGW theorists and researchers, but it seems that temps continue at record levels in the troposphere and arctic sea ice continues in a negative anomaly state…exactly two specific events predicted by the AGW hypothesis. What reason would I have to really doubt the AGW models? Specifically look at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=nh-seaice&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
and tell me what reason I would have to doubt that the AGW hypothesis is correct?
More “sound-byte science” from the conveyors of contradictions, never a straight answer.
We have a double layer and then accrue a third layer. And at times more and in recent history. swt
Let’s see, we ride around in this heliosphere bubble, inside a warm cavity (open ended). Cavitie contains warm (LIC) Cool (G) clouds. Now within your respective cavity, cloud configuration in walks a cloudlette. How many layers of what do we have now? For fun add magnetic field config for all components in the Local Cavity. But don’t forget the layers.
Messy ol chaos anyway.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (16:38:26) :
I’ve been curious about the postulated impact of planetary tidal forces upon the sun, resulting in sunspot variability
This goes back to the very discovery of the sunspot cycle in ~1850 and was the accepted explanation until about 1920 when George Hale discovered that sunspots changed polarities from cycle to cycle. That was the death knell for the planetary theory and it has been dead since. Occasionally, people even today sporadically become attracted to it again, but it is not considered valid science by the vast majority of solar physicists [of course, you have to figure in that there is a vast conspiracy among solar physicists to keep the truth from you].
The galactic thing is even further out on the fringe.
Jim Arndt (16:37:27) :
I would like to know how the L & P theory fits in the dynamics of solar activity, since this may explain the ” all knowing Maunder Minimum” as some have suggested.
First, L&P is not a theory, but an observation. Sunspots are getting warmer [because the magnetic field is weakening – and it is the magnetic field that works as a ‘refrigerator’ hindering the free convection of hot material from below] and therefore the contrast with the surrounding atmosphere is getting smaller. It is an observational fact that when the magnetic field falls below 1500 Gauss, the contrast becomes so low that the spot is effectively invisible. There is, of course, a continuum of field strengths so in practice, it means that smaller spots become harder to see and will disappear from view first. This will skew the sunspot numbers towards values that are too low. We also observe this tendency comparing sunspot counts with other solar activity measures, e.g. the F10.7 radio flux: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Microwaves-at-23-24-Minimum.pdf or http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202009%20SH13C-03.pdf
Contrary to common belief sunspots do not form from a huge ‘flux rope’ that erupts from below, but by the coalescence of many small elements and pores. It is unknown what cause this compaction process, but Ken Schatten has some ideas on that: http://www.leif.org/research/Percolation%20and%20the%20Solar%20Dynamo.pdf . NASA, of course, claims they have never seen anything like it before when the Hinode spacecraft observed this process in vivid detail: http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_account/sunspot_10926_is_a_magnetic_trilobite_on_the_sun_video
The black/white magnetic elements can be seen streaming FROM already formed spots and to converge or assemble into new spots.
It is possible that the L&P observations show that the ‘compaction’ process varies with time and is becoming quite low now [for unknown reason].
We know that the cosmic ray modulation did not go away during the Maunder minimum, so the magnetic cycle was still operating. See e.g.: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf
From the paper: “In addition, we reconfirm earlier findings [Beer et al., 1998] of a cyclically active sun during solar minima; a clear Schwabe cycle is present in both cores [10Be] during the Maunder minimum, especially so in NGRIP.”
Miyahara et al find a similar result during the Spoerer minimum using 14C from Japanese cedar trees: Advances in Space Research
Volume 40, Issue 7, 2007, Pages 1060-1063
doi:10.1016/j.asr.2006.12.044
Variation of solar activity from the Spoerer to the Maunder minima
indicated by radiocarbon content in tree-rings
Hiroko Miyaharaa, et al.
Abstract
This paper presents the results of our measurements of radiocarbon content in Japanese cedar trees […]. We had measured the radiocarbon content around the Spoerer and the Maunder minima, aiming to clarify the characteristics of the 11-year solar cycle during prolonged sunspot minima. The time series of radiocarbon content obtained from Japanese cedar is now available 1413 AD through 1745 AD. Frequency analyses of the radiocarbon data for the Spoerer and the Maunder minima show that the Sun continues periodic variations even during periods of long-lasting sunspot absence […]”
So, it is now clear that the magnetic cycle does not go away and that the problem must somehow lie in the visibility of Sunspots. My own guess is that the Maunder minimum was just a manifestation of a strong L&P effect.
People, don’t knock David Hathaway.
Yes, he’s been wrong but he’s stood up and admitted that he’s been wrong (as have pretty much all solar scientists!) regarding understanding and predicting the solar cycle.
But this is cutting edge stuff, and he’s been doing entirely the right thing by calling into question key assumptions about the behaviour of the Sun which pretty much all solar scientists adhere to (yes, another scientific consensus).
Hathaway has been open and forthright about the limitations of solar models and associated theories about how the solar cycle works.
This is good experimental stuff and should be welcomed. Its a world away from the cherry-picking, shut-eyed denialism that is rampant in climate science.
Without saying it, Hathaway is saying that the magnetic density of the interstellar cloud forces the sun to share more energy from its layered reserves faster than it allows them to be replaced
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/23dec_voyager.htm
Voyager Makes an Interstellar Discovery
12.23.2009
December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA’s Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.
andyadkins.livejournal.com/tag/solar science
Feb. 28th, 2010
sunspot uptick/head fake is a dependent of interstellar events.This is its era of imminent decline
location: variations to reduced sunspot activities have enhanced impact upon tectonic events
mood: sunspot depths and intensities can be used to help assess the Interstellar cloud
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1967IAUS…31..385V&classic=YES
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-study-says-global-warming-may-be.html
The interstellar cloud forces the sun to share more energy from its layered reserves faster than it allows them to be replaced
Time Dependent Photon Transport in a Three Dimensional Interstellar Cloud with Stochastic Clumps
Belleni-Morante, Aldo; Saccomandi, Giuseppe
Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 234, Issue 1, pp.85-105
We consider time dependent photon transport in a three dimensional interstellar cloud which occupies a three dimensional regionV. One or more clumps of given shapes are present withinV and their positions are determined by a suitable set of stochastic variables. Iff is the photon number density in the cloud or in the clumps, then our mathematical model leads to two coupled initial value problems for the average photon density over the stochastic variables and forf * =f -. By using the theory of semigroups, we prove existence and uniqueness of a strongly continuous solution and examine the small fluctuation approximation of such a solution.
Leif Svalgaard (18:23:06) :
..Contrary to common belief sunspots do not form from a huge ‘flux rope’ that erupts from below, but by the coalescence of many small elements and pores. It is unknown what cause this compaction process,.
It is possible that the L&P observations show that the ‘compaction’ process varies with time and is becoming quite low now [for unknown reason].
So, it is now clear that the magnetic cycle does not go away and that the problem must somehow lie in the visibility of Sunspots. My own guess is that the Maunder minimum was just a manifestation of a strong L&P effect.
~
Nice post thanks Leif.
Wouldn’t it be just dandy to know what the solar cycle was like say ah 20,000 years ago?
Geesh we really don’t have a good galactic time frame to wrap our heads around.
Gotta a couple of warmer periods and more on cooler periods or mins. We’ve just gone through a warmer maxi period being followed by cooler. Around and around we go.
But we site more cooler periods. Which is indicative of what, slowly increasing to cooler like the AG froggy but in the other direction and in the “galactic time frame?” for getting to the G ah ah cloud.
Group W
(officially now a cult)
Thank you Dr. S. may we have another. lol
Thanks, Leif! University of WUWT!
Carla (19:13:56) :
Group W (officially now a cult)
Indeed: dictionary definitions of ‘cult’ include:
5. intense interest in and devotion to a person, idea, or activity
7. something regarded as fashionable or significant by a particular group
andy adkins (19:08:34) :
magnetic density of the interstellar cloud forces the sun to share more energy from its layered reserves faster than it allows them to be replaced
Much as you would like to think so, it just ain’t so. But I feel that it doesn’t matter what I say in this regard, so shall refrain from further comment on your beliefs.
R. Gates (17:25:02) :
“So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels?”
***
You continue to talk about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as if it were a proven fact. It is an unproven hypothesis. There is no empirical evidence to support the hypothesis; only computer models that have been manipulated to conform to a political consensus driven by powerful monied interests.
Let’s start at the beginning. CO2 molecules capture a small portion of surface energy and transfer this energy to the other gas molecules in the atmosphere. Some of this energy escapes into space and the rest finds its way back to the surface, where it’s eventually re-radiated.
Note that CO2 doesn’t actually retain energy; it acts only to transfer captured energy to the other molecules in the atmosphere through collisions. In short, the greenhouse effect of CO2, even at concentrations well below current levels, is energy-limited and not concentration-limited.
Some climate scientists claim that water vapor amplifies the radiative “forcing” of man-made CO2 — creating a sort of magic “multiplier effect” that raises surface temperatures. But where’s the proof? There isn’t any. (“The models all agree,” isn’t proof.)
Hundreds of thousands of radiosonde measurements have failed to find a pattern of upper trophospheric heating predicted by the models. Global temperatures flatlined in the late 1990s and have been declining slightly since 2002. The IPCC models predicted a steady upward trend, not a decline. Ergo, their predictions have been falsified.
Scientists don’t understand how the sun works, they don’t understand how clouds work, they have a rudimentary understanding of how oceans work, and they’re still studying the impact of volcanic eruptions. In other words, they still have a lot to learn about the earth’s climate system. Yet, the AGW camp is absolutely certain human-induced CO2 emissions cause global warming.
There’s not a single piece of evidence in the data record that supports the AGW hypothesis. It is a belief driven by money and a hatred of “polluters,” those nasty capitalists on a mission to destroy Mother Earth through their relentless efforts to raise mankind’s living standards. All of its claims are based on inaccurate, incomplete and misleading analysis. As such, it ranks in the same scientific category as a belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
But there are still save-the-earth diehards who cling to the bogus man-causes-warming theory.
Leif Svalgaard (19:34:48) :
Carla (19:13:56) :
Group W (officially now a cult)
Indeed: dictionary definitions of ‘cult’ include:
5. intense interest in and devotion to a person, idea, or activity
7. something regarded as fashionable or significant by a particular group
~
That definition leaves room for all, it’s a party!
WOZZ playing Billy Squier on the radio.
Leif Svalgaard (18:23:06) :
So, it is now clear that the magnetic cycle does not go away and that the problem must somehow lie in the visibility of Sunspots. My own guess is that the Maunder minimum was just a manifestation of a strong L&P effect.
Exactly! The Sun cycle can be thought of as two rough unevenly sinusoidal waves intersecting each other on a graph of time. When either number (Polarity 1 vs Polarity 2) dips below a certain point, the effect on the sunspot number is nil (as opposed to reducing it), as the total number of sunspots with a certain polarity cannot be below 0 (for obvious reasons). The Livingston and Penn effect brings both cycles down so that more time is spent below the point. In most cases the two cycles have a period of overlap at solar minimum. In this case, the Polarity 2 stayed low as Polarity 1 dropped. During the Maunder Minimum, both waves stayed below zero except at the very top, every 22 years.(Since there are 2 graphs, this works out to sunspots every 11 years.) This means that sunspot numbers below 0, though theoretically impossible, must be considered in order to truly understand the Maunder Minimum (and quite possibly all unusually long minima between cycles).
http://psc.suijs.info/sc24predict1.htm
I agree with the prediction at the bottom. It shows a more traditional time for solar maximum, 2011 (vs 2014 by NASA). The end of Cycle 23 (fall of graph 1 below 0) took place on time or maybe a little early. The beginning of Cycle 24 (rise of graph 2 above 0) was the only thing that was late. Some phenomena that have been observed (large active regions near 20-25 degrees latitude that stick around for 2-3 solar rotations) are normally associated with the time around solar maximum. Leif, can you give any feedback on this?
We live in interesting times.
R. Gates (17:25:02) :
So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels? Seriously, I concede completely that errors were made by AGW theorists and researchers, but it seems that temps continue at record levels in the troposphere and arctic sea ice continues in a negative anomaly state…exactly two specific events predicted by the AGW hypothesis. What reason would I have to really doubt the AGW models? Specifically look at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=nh-seaice&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
and tell me what reason I would have to doubt that the AGW hypothesis is correct?
My reply;
You seem to suppose that you could be right with out knowing the basic driving mechanisms of the weather or climate.
Take some time, read this all the way through then give me an honest answer of what you think, simple enough.?
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Leif Svalgaard (22:33:41) :
We do measure the total energy of solar radiation across the entire spectrum.
And what sort of information does the spectral irriadiance impart, on say the green line at 560nm,or the h20 band at 1500nm?
maksimovich (20:21:12) :
And what sort of information does the spectral irriadiance impart, on say the green line at 560nm,or the h20 band at 1500nm?
I’m not sure what you are asking. Spectral irradiance is different from Total irradiance and is measured in a completely different way. For example, on the SORCE mission there is one instrument, TIM, for the Total Irradiance, and another, SIM, for spectral irradiance. The TIM instrument is uniformly sensitive to all wavelengths from the most energetic and short wavelength X-rays to the very longest infrared wavelengths. Gamma rays and radio waves are so many orders of magnitude down that they do not contribute. A bolometer [a device that absorbs radiation and converts it to internal heat and sensed as a temperature increase in the collector is a very simple device and is the sensor of choice for measuring TSI over the past 100 years. Consider a black metal disk with a temperature sensor placed behind an aperture. When the aperture is open and pointed at the Sun, the disk warms and we measure TSI by measuring the temperature increase.