When I last wrote about the solar activity situation, things were (as Jack Horkheimer used to say) “looking up”. Now, well, the news is a downer. From the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) all solar indices are down, across the board:
The radio activity of the sun has been quieter:
And the Ap Geomagnetic Index has taken a drop after peaking last month:
WUWT contributor Paul Stanko writes:
As has been its pattern, Solar Cycle 24 has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The last few months of raw monthly sunspot numbers from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC) in Belgium are: January = 12.613, February = 18.5, March = 15.452, April = 7.000 and May = 8.484. After spending 3 months above the criteria for deep solar minimum, we’re now back in the thick of it.
The 13 month smoothed numbers, forecast values and implication for the magnitude of the cycle peak are as follows:
- June 2009 had a forecast of 5.5, actual of 2.801, implied peak of 45.83
- July 2009 had a forecast of 6.7, actual of 3.707, implied peak of 49.79
- August 2009 had a forecast of 8.1, actual of 5.010, implied peak of 55.67
- September 2009 had a forecast of 9.7, actual of 6.094, implied peak of 56.55
- October 2009 had a forecast of 11.5, actual of 6.576, implied peak of 51.46
- November 2009 had a forecast of 12.6, actual of 7.190, implied peak of 51.36
- December 2009 had a forecast of 14.6, actual would require data from June.
Solar Cycle 24 now has accumulated 810 spotless days. 820, which would require only 10 more spotless days, would mean that Cycle 24 was one standard deviation above the mean excluding the Dalton and Maunder Grand Minima.
One standard deviation is often an accepted criteria for considering an occurrence ‘unusual’.
Here are the latest plots from Paul Stanko:
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The Sun is right on track to its predicted cycle 24:
http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
Detailed plots here:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The ‘episodic’ ramp-up is also not unusual for a weak cycle:
http://www.leif.org/research/SC14.png
“isn’t this in direct contrast to the stories on Drudge and elswhere stating that we are going to have massive storms?”
Stories like that are generally a “safe bet” if you play the odds. We have “massive storms” every solar max and our electronic infrastructure is more extensive than it was during the last solar max.
It is just a headline designed to attract eyeballs to ads at most news media outlets. That is why it is called the “news industry”; they manufacture news.
My solar based forecast for temperature deviations from normals, indicates;
a heat wave starting around June 12th,
a heat wave starting around mid July,
a drop in temp mid August leading to v.heavy N.H. rain,
an intensly hot September, especially at the end,
a record breaking hot October,
an unusually mild November, very wet.
MattN says:
June 10, 2010 at 11:56 am
This story might have been a little premature: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100609/sc_space/moreactivesunmeansnastysolarstormsahead
Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that NASA has been on about a ramping up for a couple of years now while sunspot numbers were heading down. Let’s wait and see shall we.
Enneagram says:
Someone upthere pull the hand break:
Planning a trip down to Concepción on 20th September, flying to Europe to see Katla’s shaking its ashtray?
If they adjust down the X-factor a bit, it will be colder in the NASA models too;
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/GreenhouseGasTheoryDiscredited.pdf
Forget CO2, forget Methane – the only place Earth gets heat from is the Sun. (double fullstop). Find out how much heat comes from the Sun during its solar variations – then FIND OUT HOW THE EARTH HANDLES THE INPUT.
ps. No models are allowed – they don’t work!
Wishful thinking: Next october, Climate Gate II. Next november: Snow falling on Cancun during GWrs. jamboree, El Chichon volcano eruption covers with ashes pleasure gathering of climate fanatics, local drug cartel’s maffia kidnaps Al Baby. ☺
I’m an AGW skeptic, but I agree with Lief. It looks like noise on the ramp up of cycle 24…
So much for ‘revising’ historical SS counts, et al. Current inflated SS numbers render the whole “science” a farce. Now we are supposed to believe radio fluence is the holy grail. Perhaps it will so resolve-when we’re long dead and gone.
Just like with the temperature dataset, NOAA is also contaminating the Solar Spot Number by giving sunspot numbers to every little speck on the sun… even dead pixels.
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram says:
June 10, 2010 at 12:11 pm
“nil says:
June 10, 2010 at 12:02 pm
How come we have 3 of the hotest years in the last 100 in the most spotless days list?”
Urban effects, station drop outs, manipulation. And satellite don’t count as it wasn’t around 100 years ago. Or even 50.”
But haven’t we learned only yesterday that the increase in CO2 is following the temperature rise? Could it really be that the oceans are emitting so much CO2 because of urban heat islands?
I’m looking at your graphs with a chartist’s eye, not a scientists, and I see a very spiky history that suggests you should be careful reading too much into this recent drop in sunspots. I’d wait for a couple more data points before concluding the sun is going quiet again.
gary gulrud says:
June 10, 2010 at 1:16 pm
So much for ‘revising’ historical SS counts, et al. Current inflated SS numbers render the whole “science” a farce.
Only for people that do not know what is going on. The current sunspot numbers are probably too LOW, as sunspots are warmer and thus harder to see.
“Ulric Lyons says:
June 10, 2010 at 12:36 pm
My solar based forecast for temperature deviations from normals, … etc…”
But where?
Roald says:June 10, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Urban effects, station drop outs, manipulation. And satellite don’t count as it wasn’t around 100 years ago. Or even 50.”
But haven’t we learned only yesterday that the increase in CO2 is following the temperature rise? Could it really be that the oceans are emitting so much CO2 because of urban heat islands?
So much CO2? Really. Historically? Unprecendented? Better look at some historical reconstructions or change your use of adjectives.
Could it happen a sudden ice-age like this Frozen Wave in the Antarctic could suggest?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32858301/Frozen-Wave
It is far too soon to say the present solar cycle is slowing down. It actually looks like we are going to have some of the strongest solar activity of this cycle, so far, by the end of June 2010.
nil says: June 10, 2010 at 12:02 pm
How come we have 3 of the hotest years in the last 100 in the most spotless days list?
Every downturn from a peak is going to be neat that peak. And 2009-2010 a hot period?? Pffff….
Rule one of AGW – it is only ever very hot in places that nobody lives and nobody can verify.
.
The curve is pretty noisy, lots of ups and downs.
The current little dip has many of similar size earlier in the cycle.
Wait and see if the trend survives the noise.
-Jay
I love this NASA Sunspot prediction.
We pay for this ‘science’ ? You could do better by throwing darts at a board, or doing a vox-pop at your local kindergarten.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~trochos/ssn-nasa-predictionsb.gif
.
Too early to say. This fluctuates wildly. The next 6 months will tell us much more I think.
My feeling though is that the sun is taking a nap.
An important graph that should be always be looked at when discussing the sun is total solar irradiance. Irradiance is good measure of the total energy reaching the earth from the sun, and as as this latest very detailed graph displays:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_2400x1800.png
While it is bouncing around a lot, the graph is quite clearly on the uptrend from the solar minimum, and if you look back toward the years prior to the solar minimum, heading back towards the last solar max in cycle 23, you’ll see a series of higher highs and lower lows, that are in line with the crossing of groups of sunspots, etc. Expect irradiance to continue on it’s upward trek, though bouncing up and down as it does so, toward the solar max in 2013, and the total amount of energy from the sun to increase ever so slightly in tandem. A great study on this has recently been published which also discusses the surprizing relationship between sunspots and faculae and irradiance:
http://www.physorg.com/news194025410.html
In sum, though we may be temporarily seeing a lull in solar activity, this brief spike down, which as the solar irradiance chart above shows, is often followed by a sharp spike upward, and there is no reason to think we won’t see that soon, as we have a long time to go to the next solar max.
@Jimmy Haigh says:
June 10, 2010 at 1:46 pm
“But where?”
N.Hemisphere generally.