This is something you really don’t expect to see this far into solar cycle 24.
But there it is, the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite shows the sun as a cueball:
The Ap index being zero, indicates that the sun’s magnetic field is low, and its magneto is idling rather than revving up as it should be on the way to solar max. True, it’s just a couple of data points, but as NOAA’s SWPC predicts the solar cycle, we should be further along instead of having a wide gap:
The Ap index generally follows along with the sunspot count, which is a proxy of solar activity.
And here’s the daily Ap geomagnetic data. The Ap is bumping along the bottom:
The long term Ap has been on a downtrend, ever since there was a step change in October 2005:
The overall data looks pretty anemic:
This page is normally updated once a day by Jan Alvestad. All values are preliminary.
[Solar Terrestrial Activity Report]
h/t to Joe D’Aleo and thanks to Jan Alvestad for keeping this data and plotting it.
Solar and geomagnetic data (last month)
| Date | Measured
solar flux |
Sunspot number | Planetary A index | K indices (3-hour intervals) | Min-max solar wind speed (km/sec) | Number of flares (events) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STAR | NOAA | STAR | NOAA | Daily low – high | Planetary | Boulder | C | M | X | |||
| 20101222 | 77.7 | 12 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0-0 | 00000000 | 00001100 | 287-381 | |||
| 20101221 | 77.9 | 12 | 0 | 1.3 | 1 | 0-3 | 01001000 | 11101100 | 347-457 | |||
| 20101220 | 77.9 | 12 | 0 | 8.5 | 8 | 3-18 | 13222223 | 13222223 | 346-479 | |||
| 20101219 | 80.9 | 11 | 0 | 1.4 | 1 | 0-6 | 10000002 | 11000112 | 345-415 | |||
| 20101218 | 80.5 | 0 | 0 | 2.3 | 2 | 0-5 | 11001001 | 11101211 | 353-446 | |||
| 20101217 | 81.6 | 11 | 11 | 3.1 | 3 | 0-7 | 21001111 | 31001221 | 383-524 | |||
| 20101216 | 84.1 | 11 | 23 | 4.6 | 5 | 0-9 | 21210111 | 21220221 | 433-567 | |||
| 20101215 | 86.9 | 22 | 11 | 8.9 | 9 | 3-27 | 34111111 | 44222211 | 544-655 | 1 | ||
| 20101214 | 90.3 | 34 | 33 | 11.1 | 11 | 5-18 | 12233323 | 13233323 | 491-757 | 1 | ||
| 20101213 | 87.7 | 49 | 46 | 5.4 | 5 | 2-9 | 22200022 | 32211212 | 385-611 | |||
| 20101212 | 89.4 | 52 | 23 | 3.8 | 4 | 0-15 | 00001312 | 00001422 | 293-445 | |||
| 20101211 | 86.9 | 23 | 25 | 0.9 | 1 | 0-3 | 00000001 | 01001001 | 284-354 | |||
| 20101210 | 88.4 | 40 | 33 | 0.3 | 0 | 0-2 | 00000000 | 00000110 | 321-349 | |||
| 20101209 | 86.8 | 54 | 22 | 1.8 | 2 | 0-3 | 11000001 | 11200110 | 341-404 | |||
| 20101208 | 87.2 | 48 | 22 | 2.8 | 3 | 0-7 | 11001021 | 12111222 | 337-445 | |||
| 20101207 | 87.1 | 31 | 34 | 3.9 | 4 | 2-7 | 10102111 | 01112211 | 342-385 | |||
| 20101206 | 88.5 | 28 | 35 | 2.4 | 2 | 0-4 | 00011111 | 01121121 | 269-351 | |||
| 20101205 | 87.9 | 42 | 47 | 0.8 | 1 | 0-4 | 00000001 | 00011101 | 270-274 | |||
| 20101204 | 87.4 | 52 | 48 | 0.6 | 1 | 0-3 | 00100000 | 00101010 | 270-314 | |||
| 20101203 | 86.8 | 47 | 27 | 1.1 | 1 | 0-5 | 01000000 | 02000000 | 270-337 | |||
| 20101202 | 86.5 | 38 | 32 | 2.6 | 3 | 0-6 | 21001000 | 11000110 | 339-360 | |||
| 20101201 | 86.5 | 44 | 25 | 1.8 | 2 | 0-4 | 10000011 | 10100210 | 338-358 | 1 | ||
| 20101130 | 86.4 | 36 | 24 | 3.0 | 3 | 2-4 | 01011110 | 12021110 | 345-402 | |||
| 20101129 | 82.5 | 24 | 31 | 3.1 | 3 | 0-5 | 00111110 | 01221111 | 348-437 | |||
| 20101128 | 80.1 | 34 | 34 | 6.1 | 6 | 0-12 | 22101231 | 23212221 | 384-460 | |||
| 20101127 | 76.5 | 38 | 11 | 11.9 | 12 | 0-67 | 00001164 | 00001243 | 294-520 | |||
| 20101126 | 76.2 | 12 | 23 | 1.6 | 2 | 0-4 | 00001111 | 00001110 | 344-390 | |||
| 20101125 | 77.9 | 25 | 22 | 3.6 | 4 | 2-6 | 12111110 | 02112110 | 382-477 | |||
| 20101124 | 75.8 | 23 | 11 | 4.4 | 4 | 3-6 | 11111122 | 11221221 | 426-518 | |||
| 20101123 | 75.3 | 12 | 12 | 7.8 | 8 | 3-15 | 21311332 | 21312321 | 452-537 | |||
This page is normally updated once a day by Jan Alvestad. All values are preliminary.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Zeke the Sneak says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Dr S, the abrupt temp rise above the sun’s photosphere happens evenly around the sun, not in a chaotic and lumpy way, which would be expected if it is the result of so many explosions and supposed reconnections.
Where do you get that idea from? Just by inspection of the Sun’s limb you can see how spiky, uneven, turbulent it is:
What I was trying to talk about is the abrupt temperature rise that is found in the atmosphere above the sun, rising from 5,000K slowly to 20,000K, and then suddenly leaping to 2million degrees.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Sun_Atmosphere_Temperature_and_Density_SkyLab.jpg
You see the white line representing temp. An explanation for that is the presence of a double layer in a plasma accelerating positively charged particles away as solar wind. See the J. A double layer also explains radio frequencies, and accelerating incoming electrons which give the sun the appearance, temerature and spectrum of an electric arc.
Dr. Svalgaard provided the following paper:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Plasma-Reconnection.pdf
Thank you, I appreciate the paper.
A full discussion of the paper must wait until after the holiday.
But it is noted the term, “electromagnetism”, does not appear in the paper.
My bad, “electromagnetism” is not used, but “electromagnetic” is used several times in the section of the paper, titled, 5.3. Instabilities and Time-Dependent Effects.
My mistake. This section will be fully discussed with the rest of the paper after the holiday.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 24, 2010 at 8:58 am
I don’t know what you mean by ‘foresee’. I’m not into astrology or clairvoyance.
I am just curious why you would think if we have a grand minimum why it would be as deep as the Maunder. The Maunder probably has at least 4 cycles of disruption, whereas I think this minimum will only be disrupted for two cycles.
johanna says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:18 pm
“Well said, Mac. From a human perspective, it would be better if the AGW crowd was right. There are good reasons why the tropics are populated, and the poles are not.”
May I make the observation that Islam is kinda limited to the tropics too?…
Jimmy Haigh says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
December 24, 2010 at 9:45 pm
…my point being that could one survive a lunar month without water or food as an aspiring Muslim would have to do had he/she been trying to promote the religion inside the Arctic Circle…
James F. Evans says:
December 24, 2010 at 4:54 pm
But it is noted the term, “electromagnetism”, does not appear in the paper.
it is noted that the term ‘double layer’ dies not appear in the paper.
My mistake. This section will be fully discussed with the rest of the paper after the holiday.
You should use your time to try to understand the paper instead. If you have problems with specific sections, I’ll be glad to help you out. We do not need a diatribe.
Geoff Sharp says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:09 pm
I am just curious why you would think if we have a grand minimum why it would be as deep as the Maunder. The Maunder probably has at least 4 cycles of disruption, whereas I think this minimum will only be disrupted for two cycles.
First, the Maunder was not a ‘disruption’, but simply that the spots were too weak to be seen. Second, I have no idea how long the minimum might be and I take a dim view of cyclomania. The Spoerer minimum was probably ‘deeper’ in the sense of less activity, but was shorter lived.
Holugu says:
December 24, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Just out of curiosity… if I have data that falsify the fusion/HR model, will you accept it?
Of course I would accept it, but be forewarned that it better be good. You are in for a Nobel prize [or two] if you can shot that model down, so perhaps you should begin to make preparations for a trip to Stockholm. I’ll gladly sit in the front row listening to your acceptance speech.
Zeke the Sneak says:
December 24, 2010 at 3:30 pm
You see the white line representing temp.
The temperature rises to millions of degrees over a very short distance [a few hundred kilometers], but that layer [the Transition Region] is very dynamic and varies a lot with time and space
An explanation for that is the presence of a double layer in a plasma accelerating positively charged particles away as solar wind.
If positively charges are accelerated away from the Sun, then negative charges are accelerated towards to sun. This would make the sun more and more negative over time. So you get into a situation that the Sun is surrounded by positive charges and is itself negative. The mutual [extremely] strong attraction of these would stop and reverse any further separation. To get a feeling for how strong that force is: if the Earth had a few thousand ton more charge of one sign that the Sun, the force would be stronger than the gravitational force holding the Earth in its orbit. The Solar wind removes several million tons of plasma from the Sun every second.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 24, 2010 at 11:46 pm
First, the Maunder was not a ‘disruption’, but simply that the spots were too weak to be seen. Second, I have no idea how long the minimum might be and I take a dim view of cyclomania. The Spoerer minimum was probably ‘deeper’ in the sense of less activity, but was shorter lived.
Disruption, too weak, L&P, grand minimum….who gives a hoot, the sun was in a funk. By stating a Maunder type minimum you are also stating the depth and length. Your views on cycles is not important but to correct you the Sporer was most likely the longest grand minimum of the Holocene.
The background problem is that you do not have any forecasting ability when it comes to grand minima. Science is proven by the ability to forecast and hindcast with accuracy.
Possible link back to a previous story?
“SORCE’s Solar Spectral Surprise – UV declined, TSI constant”
Possibility that the levels of UV have been changing (or other parts of the spectrum changing) that we just haven’t been able to map yet?
Jimmy Haigh says:
December 24, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Little use though I have for Islam, I must object to your comment. If you are referring to Ramadan, the fasting is during daylight hours only. Come dark, and they eat like the pigs they won’t eat.
Holugu;
I share your home town. Merry Christmas!
Gimme a call at 647-4539. P.m. only, please!
😉
7 days with no sunspots!
@Leif
>> First, the Maunder was not a ‘disruption’, but simply that the spots
>> were too weak to be seen.
@Geoff Sharp
> Disruption, too weak, L&P, grand minimum….who gives a hoot,
> the sun was in a funk.
“Disruption” is a strong word connoting an abrupt change or cessation of activity, such as when a factory shuts down its manufacturing operations. In this case the sun is not shutting down, but is merely experiencing one of its “seasonal” adjustments, slightly reducing its activity and maybe laying off a few workers.
It’s still running according to “business as usual” in terms of the magnetically active regions that we call “sunspots”. They’re still there, interacting with the solar system and modulating cosmic rays etc.
It’s just that we humans will have a harder time seeing them. We hold these “sunspot counts” very dearly.
So the real disruption seems to be our human perception of what’s going on, because our eyes happen to be tuned to wavelengths where the sunspots will seem to have completely vanished. But they’re still there, broadcasting brightly in microwaves, EUV and Xray.
We also jump too eagerly to conclusions. These grand minima have occurred in the past in coincidence with cooler climate, so there is a tendency to assume there is a canonical cause and effect relationship. But that relationship has not been established beyond doubt. It’s like flipping a coin four times (Spoerer, Maunder, Dalton, Eddy) and getting heads. Remarkable but just on the edge of being statistically significant (assuming, for the sake of argument, a coin-flip likelihood)
I personally think it’s likely that these grand minima are related to climate changes, perhaps due to UV absorption, but there is no widely accepted mechanism for explaining this cooling phenomenon. It’s still an area of intense debate.
So it’s too early to deride the deniers. We can’t even say “the Earth is Round”, in a strictly mathematical sense. (It’s more of an ellipsoid.) 😐
John Day says:
December 25, 2010 at 7:01 am
So the real disruption seems to be our human perception of what’s going on, because our eyes happen to be tuned to wavelengths where the sunspots will seem to have completely vanished. But they’re still there, broadcasting brightly in microwaves, EUV and Xray.
Not so, EUV is severely disrupted right now. Link and again.
Geoff Sharp says:
December 25, 2010 at 12:41 am
By stating a Maunder type minimum you are also stating the depth and length. Your views on cycles is not important but to correct you the Sporer was most likely the longest grand minimum of the Holocene.
I stand corrected on the length, but see the depth: http://www.leif.org/research/Loehle-Temps-and-TSI.png
Although my ‘views on cycles is not important’ I don’t think I said that a coming Grand Minimum [if one is coming] would be short.
The background problem is that you do not have any forecasting ability when it comes to grand minima. Science is proven by the ability to forecast and hindcast with accuracy.
Of course not, nobody has. Grand Minima occur at random with no periodicity.
John Day says:
December 25, 2010 at 7:01 am
It’s just that we humans will have a harder time seeing them. We hold these “sunspot counts” very dearly.
But only when they confirm what we believe, otherwise they are ‘unreliable’
Geoff Sharp says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:29 am
Not so, EUV is severely disrupted right now.
First of all, we are not even sure if that is instrumental or real. Second, ‘severely disrupted’ is much too strong for a such a small difference [if even real].
@Geoff
> Not so, EUV is severely disrupted right now. Link and again.
I would say that the EUV output is reduced, not “severely disrupted”. Like I said, some of the “worker” sunspots have been “laid off”. Happens every 11 years, but the plant dynamos are still very much in operation. E pur si muovono.
@Leif
>> It’s just that we humans will have a harder time seeing them.
>> We hold these “sunspot counts” very dearly.
> But only when they confirm what we believe, otherwise they are
> ‘unreliable’
… like any proxy used to model nature. The RF fluxes and other EMR radiations are proxies too, for understanding the underlying solar physics. But are far more reliable for most purposes because they don’t require human interpretation (as I have learned from your blog discussions). The one exception to this, IMHO, would be the L&P Effect, the on-going decline of sunspot magnetism, the detection of which was facilitated/accentuated by the visible fading of the spots.
> The RF fluxes and other EMR radiations … don’t require human
> interpretation
I meant to say “don’t require as much human interpretation as sunspot counts require, just to produce a measurement”. Of course, all measurements are information which need to be interpreted to discover knowledge.
@Dave Springer:
Poppycock, Dave. The reported increase in Texas is mainly in Mexicans and blacks. The Mexicans happen to be tied to the Pope and his dictates about making babies, which means lots of babies, whether they happen to be south of the Rio Grande or north.
(Lest anyone think I am being racist here, I am half Mexican myself, name of Garcia. My own family came here to get away from the Mexican Civil War, so we didn’t exactly fit the norm.)
Between people coming from Mexico and them making babies here, that accounts for the vast majority of population increase in Texas in the past decade. That was also true in the previous decade, too. But it was only through actions by the Federal courts that the increased Hispanic numbers weren’t disinherited completely from their voting rights: The first round of redistricting tried to screw them out of their fair share of representation. It is the major concern this time, too – that the GOP will try to redistrict them into minority status like last time, even where they are at or near a clear majority, by gerrymandering. (Thanks in major part to the criminal Tom Delay.)
The blacks are secondary thing. People moving there directly from the northeast for any reason other than jobs is hogwash.
As to the long term moves from the NE take away the air conditioners and watch how fast everyone moves out of the South and SW.
Our population has always gone where the jobs are and away from where the jobs aren’t. The corporations have chosen to move from the NE to the S and SW, but that was only a way stop on the way to China and India, by way of maquiladores just across the border. If Americans can move to China easily for jobs, they will all be abandoning Texas and the South soon, too.
The reason EVERYONE (over 90%) came from Europe – or Mexico or China – for the last 400 years was because this is where jobs were. Ask any immigrant, legal or illegal why they came here. Taxes had nothing to do with it. We didn’t get the people from the industrial north of Italy or from the industrial regions of the British Isles; we got them from the rural bootheel of Italy and rural Ireland, places where there were no jobs. Similarly, ask any 100 Mexicans in the U.S. where they came from in Mexico, and 80% will either tell you they are from Michoacan or from the north – areas where there are very few jobs being created, during a time of large population increases. Almost none come to the U.S. from Mexico City or Guadalajara, or from the Monterrey area. They didn’t come to the U.S. from London or Rome in the 1880s, either – because there were jobs in those places.
People moved to California in the 1930s because there were jobs there. The opposite is happening now.
Don’t go around puffing out the “individualist American” going where his personal taxes are lower crap. They go where the jobs are, and hang the taxes – the job is numero uno. Taxes are the least of their issues.
Not so for corporations. THEY go where taxes are lowest, and they always have, and always will. That is why the jobs are moving and why the people go.
The people follow the jobs.
Period.
Home prices? That comes from lower real estate prices, along with lower labor/construction costs – and lower labor costs come from cheaper labor because the labor base was low to start with – AND because the incoming labor pool expands because of people following the corporations and jobs. An expanding labor pool drives labor costs down, as every Econ 101 student knows.
Geoff Sharp says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:09 pm
I am just curious why you would think if we have a grand minimum why it would be as deep as the Maunder. >i>
Perhaps a better answer would be that I don’t consider minima to be Grand, unless they are on par with the Maunder. So some of the other ones that have been called Grand, like the Dalton, would not qualify.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
December 25, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:09 pm
I am just curious why you would think if we have a grand minimum why it would be as deep as the Maunder.
Perhaps a better answer would be that I don’t consider minima to be Grand, unless they are on par with the Maunder. So some of the other ones that have been called Grand, like the Dalton, would not qualify.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:41 am
Of course not, nobody has. Grand Minima occur at random with no periodicity.
Nobody in your part of the science world perhaps. My robust data lines up with previous slowdowns during the recent past along with the Holocene. This same data can be simply extrapolated into a grand minimum starting at SC24 and ending after SC25.
Most acknowledge the Dalton Minimum is a grand minimum, only those who refuse to see the regular grand minimum events that occur over the Holocene suggest that the monster Maunder type events are the only events worth considering. This may suit the followers of the Babcock branch but it is “blinkers on” science when you close your eyes just to follow a theory. My data not only agrees in a timing sense but also in the strength of the downturn. The data is solid and can be tested, I have a 200 year prediction, but the real test is happening right now.
I am not interested in debating the detail here….let’s just observe and see if the prediction sticks.
Geoff Sharp says:
December 25, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I am not interested in debating the detail here….let’s just observe and see if the prediction sticks.
OK, come back in 200 years and let’s see then. If you have a 200-yr prediction you also have a 200,000 year prediction as the planets cycle regularly enough for that. The near-time behavior does not qualify as a valid prediction, as many people with different ideas agree that the coming cycle will be small [and that probably the next one too], so your ‘prediction’ is not a discriminator, as everybody and his brother will claim that their prediction has come true.
It looks to me that you are the one that “close your eyes just to follow a theory”. My view is that long-term prediction is not possible, so no theory-based prediction is being made and no theory followed. The un-predictability of the Grand Minima and Maxima follows directly from analysis of the available solar data. Of course, this does not stop people from seeing cycles where there are none. You might compare your cycles with other cyclists [Vuk, DeJager, Jose, etc.] to get a feeling for the shakiness and arbitrariness of your [and their] schemes.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 25, 2010 at 6:46 pm
OK, come back in 200 years and let’s see then. If you have a 200-yr prediction you also have a 200,000 year prediction as the planets cycle regularly enough for that.
The next 2 cycles have the opportunity to prove the theory wrong, if so its pack up time. But at least I have the balls (and data) to put it on the line. The current JPL data only goes to 3000AD, so 200,000 years is difficult. My theory stands alone and is quite different from those you mentioned, but you would need an understanding to appreciate that.