Amateur telescope photographer Thierry Legault has gained renown in recent years taking photographs of spacecraft in orbit… from the ground, with them either reflecting sunlight as they cross the terminator, or silhouetted by the moon, or in recent days, silhouetted by a near spotless sun.
His most recent accomplishment is this solar silhouette of the International Space Station docked with Space Shuttle Atlantis on its STS-132 mission. While many have marvelled at his accomplishment, we’ve heard less about the continuing near-spotless state of the sun in his photograph. This one sunspot region counted enough on May 22nd to make the daily sunspot count be 15!
It appears that the sunspot and 10.7 progression for Solar Cycle 24 have hit a bit of a roadblock in recent months, according to NOAA’s Solar Cycle Progression and Prediction Center.
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“David Thomson says:
June 27, 2010 at 8:04 am
The reason why there can be a sunspot and a sunspot number of zero is that the sunspot number is calculated on the previous day while the image is from the present day. There is always a one day lag between the sunspot number and the image depicting it.”
The sunspot was actually visible yesterday and acknowledged by SC24.com and from experience and observation since 2008 daily (I am located at GMT +2) if a SC 24 tiny tim is observed the evening before, then the next morning by 6AM it is numbered. This spot is clearly visible.
This is my past experience, and it is not the first time that this hesitation has happened with a reverse polarity sunspot.
“Leif Svalgaard says:
June 27, 2010 at 10:04 am
3% of all spots [that is on in about 30] are reversed. This does not mean a SC23 spot [too high latitude for that], and not a Sc25, because that is too far away in time. ”
I did not state that this was SC 23/25 spot merely that polarity is reversed to appear like SC23/25. Yes, you have mentioned this many times on WUWT however some folks on other blogs (Italian) believe that the number of RP spots in this cycle have exceeded 3%…
I agree (it is SC 24), I was just pointing out that from experience of daily observation I find that NOAA hesitates in numbering RPS, but tiny tims may be numbered very quickly. Even if they suddenly appear in the morning, they are numbered by midday.
This morning the spot was clearly visible and the count was zero on SC24.com and as of 15:06 UTC June 27th the spot has STILL not been numbered.
Andrew30 says:
June 27, 2010 at 7:56 am
Someone needs to be using the same technology today as was used to create the historical record
Everybody is doing just that [except the Layman’s Count]
So who is using the historical method to measure sunspots? It is a trap.
Everybody is.
Charles S. Opalek, PE says:
June 27, 2010 at 8:23 am
For a real eye-opener about the present lack of solar activity
This paper is cyclomanic junk, IMHO. For people that believe in cycles it may be of some comfort, but it is hardly hard science. Now, scientists are often speculating [out of the box] and there is nothing wrong with that, but we should not see such as more than it is.
Pascvaks says:
June 27, 2010 at 9:13 am
Get the impression that the “Little Red Line” is going to move ‘again’
As far as I’m concerned, the Sun is on track:
http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
It is not unusual that the observed curve undulates around the predicted one.
“tonyc says:
June 27, 2010 at 6:14 am
To Mr. Alex – Where do you find sunspot polarity data?”
As a layman I refer to the reguarly updated Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) Magnetograms:
http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/
Take note of the black/white orientation of the regions on the magnetogram
27th June 04:55 UTC update of http://www.solen.info/solar/
indicates that the sunspot was numbered by the solen STAR count on 26th June, whereas the SWPC count is zero.
“…The IPCC also did not compose a large team to evaluate the influence of Ceres or Pluto on the Earth…”
I didn’t know Pluto was a huge, seething ball of Helium and Hydrogen bubbling away nicely at 5000ºC, the effects of which can be felt by merely stepping out of the shadows. I’ll have to look at that NASA site again; must have missed something.
Leif @ur momisugly 10:33
Thank you very much.
Now, is the 10.7 hitting a ‘roadblock’ and does the IPCC underestimate the sun’s influence? In your opinion, of course.
===============
Nevermind, Leif, I think you answered my second question at 10:33.
One last thing before I risk overly imposing on your Sunday. What do you think of the allegations against Froehlich for data manipulation? See Bishop Hill for a good English translation of the Czech’s blogpost.
============
Mr. Alex says:
June 27, 2010 at 10:43 am
This is my past experience, and it is not the first time that this hesitation has happened with a reverse polarity sunspot.
I don’t think this is the case [I know the people at NOAA and how they count – reversed polarity does not create ‘hesitation’]. To bolster your claim, produce a list of cases.
however some folks on other blogs (Italian) believe that the number of RP spots in this cycle have exceeded 3%…
Again, the way to settle this is to produce a list. When SC23 ‘ended’ the NOAA region count was 11008. Now it is 11084, for a difference of 72. 3% of that is 2 spots, so statistically we should have had 2 reversed spots [and with so few spots that could easily be 1 or 3 as well]. Now, we need to be more precise: we should talk about the active ‘region’ rather than of individual spots. It is only with respect to the region of several spots [some leading and some trailing] that ‘reversed’ polarity makes sense. If what you got is a single spot, you can’t tell if it is reversed. You can tell whether the region is, and 1084 is.
the spot has STILL not been numbered.
1084
Nevermind, Leif, you answered my second question in your 10:33 comment.
One last thing before I risk imposing too much on your Sunday. What do you think of the allegations against Froehlich about data manipulation?
============
Whoa, in to the void the comments go. What’s Up?
=============
Pops says:
June 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
I didn’t know Pluto was a huge, seething ball of Helium and Hydrogen bubbling away nicely at 5000ºC, the effects of which can be felt by merely stepping out of the shadows.
Many people here seem to think that it doesn’t matter how big Pluto [or Ceres as was recently claimed] is to have effect…
kim
June 27, 2010 at 10:53 am
Now, is the 10.7 hitting a ‘roadblock’ and does the IPCC underestimate the sun’s influence? In your opinion, of course.
F10.7 is behaving as it should [on track]. Some undulation is normal and expected.
To the extent that the IPCC seems to rely on Judith Lean’s assessment which is close to my own, I think that the IPCC is not far off on that.
Leif, if the allegations about Froelich are correct, how can Lean’s analysis be ‘fair’?
============
Pops says:June 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
I didn’t know Pluto was a huge, seething ball of Helium and Hydrogen bubbling away nicely at 5000ºC, . . .
It isn’t. That’s just GISS homogenization again. Still looks normal in the raw data, even in USHCN v2.
kim says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:17 am
Leif, if the allegations about Froelich are correct, how can Lean’s analysis be ‘fair’?
‘allegations’ are misplaced. Every experimenter adjust the data. The problem is that the detectors degrade in the harsh environment of space being in vacuum exposed to X-rays, UV, solar wind, cosmic rays, etc. The degradation is much larger than the solar changes in TSI and must be measured [estimated is a better word – ‘guessed at’ some would say]. One way is to have several detectors exposed different lengths of time, then look at the degradation of a function of time ans extrapolate to zero time.
There are disagreements about what the degradations are and how to employ them, but all that and the ‘JudithGate’ are just strawmen in the question about solar influence, because the final adjusted datasets do actually not disagree very much.
kim says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:17 am
if the allegations about Froelich are correct
This is totally overblown. Froelich does not ‘manipulate’ somebody else’s data. The ACRIM data is still there and has not been touched by Froehlich. What Claus does is to assign a different weight to the ACRIM data when he build his own private composite of all available data. Nothing wrong with that, just a reflection of Claus’ different [and likely correct, IMHO] opinion about what the degradation of ACRIM has been. And if one doesn’t like what he did, don’t use his composite.
As for that undulation:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uSC24vs13_14.GIF
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/SC24vs13_14.GIF
This makes the progression of it more sharply defined. What will happen when it is completed is soon to be seen.
Will it be a bigger and longer hump of activity (normally expected) or will it give way to a long run of spotlessness (paranormal)?
With this cycle, WYSIWYG.
Oh, and that butterfly closeup:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/ButterflySC23_24.PNG
A weak showing.
#
#
Pops says:
June 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
I didn’t know Pluto was a huge, seething ball of Helium and Hydrogen bubbling away nicely at 5000ºC, the effects of which can be felt by merely stepping out of the shadows. I’ll have to look at that NASA site again; must have missed something.
____________________________________________________________________
ROTFLMAO, Hopefully with SORCE now up and running, NASA will not miss anything in the coming decades, although I am not sure I trust them.
This is an interesting new paper about some of the findings from SORCE. NASA had data for one half of cycle 23, peak to minimum. It seems the sun is not as “dull” as some would like us to think: http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/fulltext/Cahalan_Wen_etal.pdf
Leif @ur momisugly 11:39 AM Much Gracious.
===================
As for that undulation:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uSC24vs13_14.GIF
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/SC24vs13_14.GIF
This makes the progression of it more sharply defined. What will happen when it is completed is soon to be seen
Will it be a bigger and longer hump of activity (normally expected) or will it give way to a long run of spotlessness (paranormal)?
With this cycle, WYSIWYG
Oh, and that butterfly closeup:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/ButterflySC23_24.PNG
A weak showing
Yes, rbateman, we are all awestruck in anticipation. May we live long enough to understand it.
=========
Regarding Frohlich’s “adjustments”, here’s what astrophysicist Richard C. Willson (head of the ACRIM satellites) had to say: “Fröhlich made unauthorised and incorrect adjustments… He did it without any detailed knowledge of the ACRIM1 instrument or on-orbit performance…The only obvious purpose was to devise a TSI composite, that agreed with the predictions of Lean’s TSI proxy model.” And astrophysicist & former head of Nimbus7 Douglas Hoyt’s letter regarding the paper by Lean and Frolich: “Thus, Frohlich’s PMOD TSI composite is not consistent with the internal data or physics of the Nimbus7 cavity radiometer.”
So here we have the two people in the best position to assess relevant degradation of the satellite radiometers who have a damning assessment of Frohlich’s “adjustments” – that just so happen to match up with Lean’s statistical model of TSI.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the IPCC chose Lean as the sole solar physicist to agree with her own paper and parrot the party line that the only thing that matters is CO2.
kim says:
June 27, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Trying to understand it is less than useless.
Attempting to do so is tantamount to wearing a sign that says “kick me”.
So I make my graphs and go with the flow.
Hockey Schtick says:
June 27, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Regarding Frohlich’s “adjustments”, here’s what astrophysicist Richard C. Willson (head of the ACRIM satellites) had to say: “Fröhlich made unauthorised and incorrect adjustments…
Fröhlich made no adjustments to Willson’s data. And one should not be ‘authorised‘ to make adjustments to the copy of someone’s data.
He did it without any detailed knowledge of the ACRIM1 instrument or on-orbit performance…
Fröhlich has been in this business some 40 years and know a lot about all the instruments. If some important knowledge about ACRIM is lacking, then Willson must be faulted for not including that in his publications about ACRIM.
The only obvious purpose was to devise a TSI composite, that agreed with the predictions of Lean’s TSI proxy model.
This is a serious [and unfounded] accusation having to do with motives and agendas.
The ACRIM data has severe problems; one is an annual wave [that persists after the varying distance to the Sun has been taken into account] that clearly is an artifact and shows that the ACRIM crew does not have everything under control.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the IPCC chose Lean as the sole solar physicist to agree with her own paper and parrot the party line that the only thing that matters is CO2.
This is also a severe and unfounded accusation showing your bias and agenda. Using the ACRIM data instead of Fröhlich’s make no difference to the analysis except increasing the noise and hence the statistical significance of any solar connection. BTW there is a third instrument that has measured TSI since 1996, namely the Belgian DIARAD experiment. Their result is halfway between Fröhlich and Willson, so splits the difference nicely. The main conclusion is that there is no demonstrated difference between TSI at the three solar minima we have now observed.
But, the real point, is that the small differences claimed do not make any difference to Lean’s conclusion; expect for decreasing the solar influence due to more noise if you use ACRIM. Now, if you are against solar influence, my best advise is the use ACRIM.
BTW, Fröhlich’s degradation is also incorrect [leading to too low TSI this minimum] compared to the best we have, SORCE: http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD%20TSI-SOHO%20keyhole%20effect-degradation%20over%20time.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Correction, of course:
Using the ACRIM data instead of Fröhlich’s makes no difference to the analysis except increasing the noise and hence decreasing the statistical significance of any solar connection.
“Leif Svalgaard says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:01 am”
True, I do not agree with that blog’s views on the 3% amount, just throwing it out there but I understand your point.
“To bolster your claim, produce a list of cases.”
Unfortunately I have not documented a complete list of cases however here are a 3 examples:
***March 22 2009, a reversed region in the northern hemisphere pops up
http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/img/jpg/bqa/200903/bbbqa090321/bbbqa090321t2254.jpg
Numbered by STAR count (11), but not NOAA (0)
http://www.solen.info/solar/old_reports/2009/march/20090322.html
***October 10 2009, a reversed region in the northern hemisphere pops up
http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/img/jpg/bqa/200910/bbbqa091010/bbbqa091010t2234.jpg
Numbered by STAR count (13), but not NOAA (0)
http://www.solen.info/solar/old_reports/2009/october/20091011.html
***November 13 2009, a reversed region in the southern hemisphere pops up
http://gong2.nso.edu/dailyimages/img/jpg/bqa/200911/tdbqa091113/tdbqa091113t1004.jpg
Numbered by STAR count (12), but not NOAA (0)
http://www.solen.info/solar/old_reports/2009/november/20091114.html
“the spot has STILL not been numbered.
1084”
Solen 27th June 04:55 update:
“Spotted regions not numbered by NOAA/SWPC:
[S784] This region rotated into view early in the day at the southeast limb. Location at midnight: S18E70”
This spot may have been named 1084, but the spot count (SN) is still zero as of 18:06 UTC June 27.