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.
How about we just call them guesses?
It worth noting that NASA doesn’t make solar predictions. This is Dr. Hathaway’s personal website at NASA.
The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel makes the predictions for NOAA.
see: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
Stephen Wilde says:
January 18, 2011 at 5:38 pm
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.
How about “the solar Wildebeest”?
ge0050 says:
January 19, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Why is new magnetic flux not the same polarity as the old flux?
sunspots are inherently bipolar [Hale’s law – observational fact], a part with one polarity, and a part with the opposite polarity [because magnetic fields are like that – no monopoles have ever been observed]. One polarity tends to be at a bit higher latitude than the other [Joy’s law – observational fact]. As the spot group disperses into the surrounding photosphere, that polarity has a better chance of getting to the pole [it is closer]. That polarity is the opposite of the polar fields during the rising part of the cycle [Babcock’s law – observational fact], hence will cancel the polar fields during the rising phase and then build a new polar field with reversed polarity during the rest of the cycle. That new polar field determine the polarity of the new spots in the next cycle.
Where does the energy come from that flips the magnetic field?
The field is not one ‘large’ entity, but consists of thousands of tiny ‘elements’ that are moved around by the ‘meridional circulation’ [moving towards the poles at the surface and back to the equator again at depth. The energy comes from the interior of the Sun [where there is enough of it].
Why is the length of time between reversals variable?
The stronger the polar fields are, the longer it takes to reverse them, bit by bit. The stronger the cycle is the more flux can be transported to the poles.
Why is it not more regular?
Because it is the result of basically random events. On all the magnetic flux emerging during a cycle only a very small part [one in a thousand] makes it to the poles. This happens in a few [about five] ‘surges’. But that could be three surges or seven surges or some random small number.
What determines the magnitude and limits of these variations?
It is a self-sustaining process: magnetic fields from spots give rise to the new polar fields that in turn help create the next cycle’s spots [all with reversed polarities]. The amount of existing flux determines how much there is to work with. Random fluctuations [only about five – in each hemisphere – flux surges occur] throttle the process.
Is a Hale cycle of 10 years possible?
depends on the speed of the meridional circulation and how much that might vary. The sun is big and ponderous, so I think too large variations [10 years, 100 years] are unlikely, but possible.
How about 100 years? If not, why not?
see above
Why is the sunspot cycle a 2:1 resonance of magnetic cycle?
It is not, you misunderstand the meaning of resonance. There really isn’t any magnetic cycle as a physical entity. What we have are just two adjacent single cycles that by virtue of the polar field reversal, have opposite polarities. Consider this sequence …+-+-+-+-…. We could think of that as …(+-)(+-)(+-)… or as …+(-+)(-+)(-+)…, depending on where we arbitrarily start.
What is the physical process that powers this resonance?
Since there isn’t any resonance, no process is involved. The polarity reversals happen as described, the energy – eventually – coming from nuclear fusion in the core.
Why is it not a 1:1 resonance?
There is no resonance. The polarity reversals are a consequence of Joy’s law. Explaining what cause Joy’s law is part of understanding the cycle, and we do not have a full understanding of the cycle.
Walter Dnes says:
January 19, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Dr. Svalgaard; what is your current prediction for the peak 29 or 30 day average 10.7 cm flux during cycle 24? I use 29 days, because it’s approximately 1 Carrington rotation. I prefer 10.7 cm flux, because it’s objective, and not subject to personal judgement or improving optics, like sunspots.
10.7 cm flux predicted to be 120 sfu. Sunspots are not subject to improving optics as the counting is deliberately done with small telescopes (80mm aperture, magnification 64) and are checked against counts made using the original telescope used by Rudolf Wolf in the 1850s [still exists and still in use – I’m actually going today to have a peek through it – at Belp, Switzerland]
For comparison, the Solar Cycle 23 value peaked at 240 in early October, 2001. Right now, it’s crawling around 80.
As a rough guide, one spot results of 1.5 flux unit added to the basal value [65 for no spots]. so it would take (80-65)*1.5=22.5 spots to produce the 80 sfu. This is about right, the average sunspot number over the last month is about 15, a tad too small. but that is probably due to the Livingston and Penn effect. There is this notion that the spot count is too high lately. This is false. Here are the numbers for the first year of each cycle for the last several cycles:
year; ssn calc; ssn obs; obs/calc
1955 39.7 38.0 0.957
1966 49.1 47.0 0.957
1977 32.1 27.5 0.857
1987 29.3 29.2 0.997
1997 26.9 21.5 0.799
2010 27.7 16.5 0.596
The second column is the sunspot number corresponding to the observed F10.7 flux. The last column is the observed sunspot number divided by the one calculated from F10.7. As you can see, that ratio is currently much lower [=too few sunspots] than earlier.
Robuk says:
January 19, 2011 at 4:01 pm
We are comparing the Maunda and the Daulton and the reference telescope should be the earliest scope available, which is this scope.
In spite of my valiant effort you are still not getting it. The earlier counts before the 19th century have been adjusted upwards to offset the different quality of the telescopes, so that the telescope is out of the equation.
I’m willing to bet $20 that you still will not get it. You can pay the lost bet using the Paypal ‘donate’ button on my website.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 19, 2011 at 7:22 pm
The polarity reversals are a consequence of Joy’s law. Explaining what cause Joy’s law is part of understanding the cycle, and we do not have a full understanding of the cycle.
Leif, congratulations on the successes so far of the SDO mission. Are there observations coming from it which will give us better data on the meridional flows you mentioned? Or is “watching the rate of spot drift” still the best indicator?
tallbloke says:
January 19, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Leif, congratulations on the successes so far of the SDO mission. Are there observations coming from it which will give us better data on the meridional flows you mentioned? Or is “watching the rate of spot drift” still the best indicator?
For the surface, sunspots [i..e magnetic fields] work best. But SDO will allow us to trace how deep the flow goes. The Dikpati [and others] model requires a deep flow [bottom of convection zone]. Preliminary data suggests [and I won’t say more for now] that the return flow is very shallow, thus invalidating the flux transport dynamoes.
Thanks Leif. Without asking you to say more, can you give a rough approximation of what “very shallow” means in terms of a solar radius? I ask because I’m setting up a model to test Wolff and Patrone’s proposed mechanism, and it would help enormously to have a ball park value for the return flow depth.
Thanks
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 19, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Hathaway picked the wrong peak [in 2003] rather than the ‘better’ one in 2008.
And if you think that would work what is the mechanism?
IHV-NAP:
A bit of a ‘flat earth-er’ostrich attitude there again.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/IHV-NAP.htm
It is another ‘unwanted’ correlation, best to declare it:
Which makes it useless and not science.
Hopefully he might go away, or even better he should give up.
‘Science is settled’ and it is for the ‘academia’, not the amateur outsiders.
When the sun has no spots it gets cold.
Seems to me you lot have no more idea why this happens than did the early observers.
Because you have not got a clue you count specks as spots to try to make it look as if everything is normal and there is no actual sun climate link.
Roughly a drop in prediction of 30/yr. If this trend continues the prediction at the end of this year will be 35-45. Actually by the predicted time of the maximum the prediction itself could be negative! Image that …. But seriously, there seems to be no leveling off in the decrease of the predicted maximum with time. Which could mean that next time it could indeed be well below 50.
A Maunder minimum indeed! Stock up on woollies, on baked beans and on scotch.
John from CA says:
January 19, 2011 at 6:26 pm
It worth noting that NASA doesn’t make solar predictions. This is Dr. Hathaway’s personal website at NASA.
The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel makes the predictions for NOAA.
see: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
========
Gary Fox,
Please consider correcting the headline and post to eliminate references to NASA.
Headline could read : Dr. Hathaway’s Sun Spot Number predictions revised again
Is a Hale cycle of 10 years possible?
depends on the speed of the meridional circulation and how much that might vary. The sun is big and ponderous, so I think too large variations [10 years, 100 years] are unlikely, but possible.
Isn’t the variability in the Hale cycle at odds with a big ponderous sun? Doesn’t FFT analysis of this variability tends to show that it is not simply random? Might this not argue against the Hale cycle being fully self-contained?
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 19, 2011 at 1:36 pm
..If there is serious reconnection between the inward and outward IMF, then there would be no open flux left when the solar wind gets to the heliopause. That the sector structure is still very much evident at such great distance is proof that reconnection is insignificant. And when there is no body to collide with, nothing happens..
~
Dr. S., could you help us out with “Petschek-type magnetic reconnection?”
I have to wonder if planetary theorists ever read any of the following ..kind of material.
“Petschek-type magnetic reconnection exhausts in the solar wind well inside 1 AU: Helios”
J. T. Gosling
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
S. Eriksson
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
R. Schwenn
Max-Planck-Institut fur Aeronomie, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
Petschek-type reconnection exhausts can be recognized in solar wind plasma and magnetic field data as accelerated or decelerated plasma flows confined to magnetic field reversal regions. Using that characteristic signature, we have identified 28 reconnection exhausts in the Helios 1 and 2 data, thus extending observations of exhausts associated with local, quasi-stationary reconnection in the solar wind inward to heliocentric distances of 0.31 AU. Most of the exhaust jets identified in the Helios data had the same general physical character as solar wind exhausts observed at greater heliocentric distances and latitudes by ACE, Wind, and Ulysses. The magnitude of the velocity changes from outside to inside the exhausts was generally comparable to, but somewhat less than (by a factor of 0.75 on average), the inflow Alfvén speeds. In a few of the Helios events, plasma number densities within the exhausts were intermediate to densities observed immediately outside, indicating that transitions from outside to inside the exhausts were not always slow-mode-like on both sides. We have identified pairs of closely spaced, but independent, reconnection exhausts bounding regions where the heliospheric magnetic field folded back toward the Sun. We find that plasma and magnetic field conditions in the high-speed wind from coronal holes are not generally favorable for sustained magnetic reconnection and for the formation and propagation of Petschek-type exhausts.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006JA011863.shtml
Magnetic Reconnection in the Solar Wind: An Overview
Gosling, J. T.
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2007,
abstract #SM53C-01
We have recently demonstrated that local, quasi-stationary reconnection occurs relatively frequently in the solar wind over a large range (0.3 to 5.4 AU) of heliocentric distances. Direct evidence for such reconnection is found in the observation of Petschek-type exhausts, i.e., exhausts of jetting plasma bounded by Alfven or slow mode waves, emanating from reconnection sites. The exhausts are identified as intervals of roughly Alfvenic accelerated plasma flow confined to magnetic field reversal regions that usually take the form of bifurcated current sheets. The exhausts are observed almost exclusively in either the low-speed wind or in association with ICMEs in plasma predominantly having low proton beta. Field shears across the exhausts range from about 60 to 180 degrees, indicating the presence of significant guide fields in many of these events. The exhausts are embedded within the solar wind flow and typically are convected past a spacecraft on time scales ranging up to several tens of minutes, although considerably broader events have been observed on occasion. Multi-spacecraft observations have provided convincing evidence that the exhausts commonly result from prolonged reconnection at extended and continuous reconnection sites (X-lines). A relatively minor fraction of the exhausts occur at the heliospheric current sheet, HCS, but observations at the HCS are particularly useful for demonstrating magnetic field topology changes associated with reconnection and the effects of particle and plasma interpenetration within the exhausts. Although the exhausts are characterized by bulk plasma acceleration, we have not yet found any evidence for additional particle acceleration in these events.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUSMSM53C..01G
Be safe in your travells Leif.. …
Good find Carla
Full article available here:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~eriksson/2006JA011863_gosling.pdf
THAT OK NASA GOT IT AS DID THE UN [Rest trimmed Robt]
THANK YOU
Carla says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I have to wonder if planetary theorists ever read any of the following ..kind of material.
Yep we read it, and what do we get from it?
1. There is no evidence of the solar wind returning to the Sun.
2. Interstellar media is shielded from our solar system by the solar wind.
tallbloke says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:44 am
rough approximation of what “very shallow” means in terms of a solar radius
20,000 km
Geoff Sharp says:
January 20, 2011 at 4:25 pm
2. Interstellar media is shielded from our solar system by the solar wind.
other way around: the sun is shielded…
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 19, 2011 at 7:39 am
update graphic K F107 at Minima 1954 It moves like molasses in January:
http://www.leif.org/research/F107%20at%20Minima%201954%20and%202008.png
I think I understand why 1954 was chosen as the comparison year for the F10.7 curves, in that they are similarly ‘long’ duration events. However, if different years were chosen, could the results be made to look more alarming to political pundits and media geeks? By the selection of 1954, are you not showing the “least” alarming? Presentation of data is everything.
Leif Svalgaard:
One more thing regarding my above post.
In a chart posted in the sidebar of this website, the Danish Meteorological Institute maintains its daily Mean Temperature above 80°N. In this chart we see a “green” curve depicting the daily mean temperatures for the period from 1958 to 2002, against which the current measured temperatures are compared.
Couldn’t a similar ‘mean’ curve be prepared for sunspot cycles, against which the current year is compared? Perhaps a ‘sliding mean’ of +/- “x” years centred on the current date; or maybe one shown in “days (months?) from the minimum”? There must be some way to come up with something interesting, such as the Dane’s have for Arctic temperature encompassing many years.
By the way, I am a retired video/data networks engineer, so I am out of my league here, but, all the same, I thoroughly enjoy the posts at WUWT, especially yours, Leif. Thanks!
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 20, 2011 at 10:00 pm
20,000 km
Thanks Leif, most helpful.
Geoff Sharp says:
January 20, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Carla says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I have to wonder if planetary theorists ever read any of the following ..kind of material.
Yep we read it, and what do we get from it?
1. There is no evidence of the solar wind returning to the Sun.
The inbound events do get as far as the orbit of Mercury though. Hmmmm, thanks Carla.
tallbloke says:
January 20, 2011 at 11:28 pm
The inbound events do get as far as the orbit of Mercury though. Hmmmm, thanks Carla.
That’s the point Rog, deal with real data instead of searching for mystical fantasies.
Geoff Sharp says:
January 20, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Carla says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I have to wonder if planetary theorists ever read any of the following ..kind of material.
Yep we read it, and what do we get from it?
1. There is no evidence of the solar wind returning to the Sun.
2. Interstellar media is shielded from our solar system by the solar wind.
~
Geoff, I been thinking really hard about that trefoil pattern too..
Just keeps coming up..that the sun is in an orbit about a helical field like the one in the image below. In which case there would be a cyclical pattern. Until .. there is a disruption in the helical field.
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/images/helicalfield.jpg
Now .. how and when during an orbit around a helical field does the orbit become disordered. Cause that disordered thing really did kind of bother me. But this stuff is on my brains back burner somewhere.
Be nice.. wish Geoff a “Happy Friday.”
Just for a little fun.. neck on chopping block..
Earth’s north magetic poles, eastward and lesser westward locations are directly related to the solar helical orbital pattern, somehow someway.
Lighten up Leif.. its Friday.
Imaginations are on the run..
One more thing Geoff..
They think they are seeing vorticity in the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) clouds. Frequent changes in interstellar wind direction come to mind here.. might even be consistent with above said vorticity. hmm go figure..