UPDATE: see my animation of NASA solar forecasts since 2004 below.
WUWT Commenter J Gary Fox writes:
The solar cycle 24 predicted sunspot maximum has been reduced again – predicted peak down to 59 Max. (1/3/11) http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. Philosopher Y. Berra
This will be at the level of the Maunder Minimum of 1675 -1715.
Previous NASA predictions below:
- 2010 October: Predicted peak 60-70
- 2009 May 29: predicted peak: 80-90 range
- 2009 Jan 5: predicted peak: 100-110 range
- 2008 Mar 28: predicted peak: 130-140 range
From the NASA page:
Current prediction for the next sunspot cycle maximum gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 59 in June/July of 2013. We are currently two years into Cycle 24 and the predicted size continues to fall.
Here’s what the prediction looked like in March 2009:
What a difference.
Here’s an animation showing all of the prediction graphs from NASA that we have thus far:
Ira Glickstein did a guest post here a few days ago that outlines a lot of the changes in the forecast over time. It is well worth the read.
My prediction for SC24 of sub 50SSN made in 2008 is still standing.
Whats more I have solid science behind the prediction which can be falsified. The path of the Sun around the SSB is just as it was during the Maunder and there is new peer reviewed science (Wollf & Patrone) that has a mechanism for reduced solar output during this disturbed solar orbital path. Dr. Wollf tells me that he would expect a reduction in overall solar output when the Sun is on the currently disordered path.
vukcevic says:
January 18, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Few years back I had a brief correspondence with Dr. Hathaway. At that time he was confident that SC24 is going to be the strongest ever SC. Needles to say he rejected my idea out of hand, bat it proved to be far more reliable prediction method.
I also remember Vuk that your initial formula predicted a high cycle 24 not unlike Hathaway. He is not the only one getting on the band wagon.
Werner Weber says:
January 18, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Stuart Haggert wrote: Does this have something to do with the IPCC’s conviction that the sun has little effect upon climate and they are tailoring their ‘predictions’ to suit?
If indeed their convicton is so strong that the sun has little relationship to Earth’s temps (what school did they go to again?), why would they fear to predict a low sunspot count? According to them, sunspot count is irrelevant to Earth’s climate.
It is easier to think of the Sunspots cycle as a sine wave with a minimum of zero and a maximum of, say, 150. At zero the TSI is ~1360, at maximum is 1363. The difference, as per a verified previous post, corresponds to a Black Body temperature different of 0.15C. [Earth’s radiation temperature 288K.]
Starting in 2005 we started a constant out-flow of Black Body radiation of ~0.15C/2.5 years. Note: Full input from the Sun would require the Sunspots to reach ~150 or F10.7 ~250. Check Loehe temperature reconstruction graphs for the Dalton Minimum to verify the ~0.15C/2.5 years.
The Global temperature has already lost 2005 until 2010 -> 5 years*~0.15C/2.5 years=0.3C.
Careful analysis of Loehe and other temperature reconstruction graphs, reveal a 350 to 400 years collapse of Solar output.
Remember that all of this has happen before, so therefore, the Sun is acting perfectly normally. The real question is ‘Why can’t the Solar Physicists, who have the Sun “completely understood”, tell us why we have an extended Solar minimum???’
SC24 has been flat for 12months, it is possible that we have seen the peak of activity already judging by the refusal to get into the normal ramp up, cycle max whenever that happens could be just like today. Its still early days but the revised NASA predictions lead one to think SC24 is a goner.
There are some interesting aspects observed so far. There was a regime shift around June last year where the type of sunspot changed. Large unipolar groups have dominated, these groups by nature have far less F10.7 and EUV output although magnetically they are very strong. The current F10.7 readings are too low considering the current spot activity. We have also witnessed a overall rise in magnetic strength and sunspot darkness over the past 12 months as we head towards solar max, sunspot 1148 yesterday continues this trend which flies in the face of L&P (although Leif will tell you differently)
The SC5/SC24 comparison graph is the one to watch with SC24 looking like it might be weaker than SC5.
Either the incandescant sun is being replaced with the mother of all CFLs or the conveyer belt bearings have fried.
With a much larger computer budget they could turn out many more wrong predictions and eliminate the jerky motion of the animation!
(Props to Hathaway for examining the theory for problems!)
geo @ur momisugly January 18, 2011 at 4:07 pm:
While Bill Clinton might like to say it, he stole it from Al Einstein.
Anthony,
Thanks for the quote from my favorite American philosopher. My favorite Berra quote regarding my view of the proposed “solutions” to AGW: “You’ve got to be careful, if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might end up someplace else.” That quote applies to geoengineering as well.
Neil says: “I think we need to be fair to Dr Hathaway. He’s out there making predictiong, then revising them downwards as new information becomes available. He’s throwing out theories as actual data shows them to be incorrect. In other words, he’s acting like a scientist.”
In science, it’s okay to be wrong, though slightly embarrassing. It is not okay to change the data to make it look like you’re right, castigate everyone who disagrees with you, hide your data and methodology, game the peer review process, suppress the opinions of others, and pretend to be morally superior to skeptics.
Before long, it will look like a flat-chested inverted nipple!
“We still don’t quite understand this beast,” Dr. Hathaway said. “The theories we had for how the sunspot cycle works have major problems.”
Wow. Just wow. I bet someone I know (admittedly just through a faceless blog) is having a glass of wine with a satisfied smile on his face.
mitchel44 says:
January 18, 2011 at 4:19 pm
To be fair to Dr Hathaway, he’s working on it.
“We still don’t quite understand this beast,” Dr. Hathaway said. “The theories we had for how the sunspot cycle works have major problems.”
This is very promising. Maybe Hathaway is a scientist.
Ed Reid says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Here’s a Berra quote for the Warmista: “When you reach a crossroads, you take it.”
Take off your tin foil hats immediatly!!!
I’m waiting to see whether or not there can be a sustained return to more zonal jets, stratospheric cooling, decreasing cloudiness and albedo, dominance of EL Nino over La Nina and a positive AO without a high level of solar activity.
To me it is just too much of a coincidence that all those phenomena went into reverse around the same time as we began to come out of the late 20th century period of active solar cycles.
Top down solar effects on atmospheric chemistry is currently my favoured explanation. By altering the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere the surface air pressure distribution is changed for a greatly amplified effect on the global energy budget. operating via albedo and cloudiness changes.
I’ve been seeking a suitably snappy name for the process.
I cannot help noticing the upper and lower bounds on those graphs.
\\ “There is nothing at all unusual about the current dearth of sunspots. Everything is perfectly normal.” //
Yea, they are treating sunspots as a NORMAL distribution. Then have non-zero probabilities of negative numbers of sunspots.
Maybe it is a nit-pick. But they are not plotting the data with a log-normal uncertainty distribution. With the same mean and standard deviation as with the normal, a Log-Normal envelope would lower the P50, make a lower Mode than the P50, and lower the P90Low, leave the P10High about the same and raise the P01(High), and eliminate lower bounds that were negative.
In the older predictions the peak of this cycle was in 2010. What if that is right, and we are headed down now?
@Theo Goodwin:
The correct quote from Yogi Berra (he said this when giving driving directions to someone) is actually:
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Maybe WUWT should have a contest for who can guess the correct number!
What will be the prize for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places?
And to add to Pamela Gray’s comment at 5:09:
And clearly that person has the class to make no pointed remarks about being right, and simply let’s his work do the talking for him – the earmark of a professional and a gentleman.
As already noted by prior commenter: WOW !!..
Plus what sticks in the mind is not just that latest NASA SSN = 59 max would put us at Maunder Minimum levels; lowest in ~300 years; but also the consistant statistically significant downward change thru each of the last 4 sets of revised numbers from initial March 2008 predicted peak of 130-140. It will be VERY interesting to see the next NASA SC24 predicted max 6 months or so down the road; not to mention the actual SSN data by the end of 2011.
Interesting times, indeed. . . Here’s hoping that in 10 years or so I don’t look back on forecasted 26 degrees BELOW zero F. 4 tomorrow night as the ”good old days”. . .
Previous related WUWT article!
NASA’s Sunspot Prediction Roller Coaster
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/27/nasas-sunspot-prediction-roller-coaster/
By the way. Did you saw this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1346936/The-sun-rises-days-early-Greenland-sparking-fears-climate-change-accelerating.html
Now if I could only find something to knock the hell out of the Neo-Cons precautionary principle belief system.
I think a rewrite of history from 1920 to 1945 will do the trick. You just have to show how isolationism in the US kept us out of WW2. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Pamela Gray says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Before long, it will look like a flat-chested inverted nipple!
That can be fixed at least temporarily with the properly applied vacuum engineering method. 😉