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.
Geoff
Reality is :
Magnetic flux rope is made of charged particles (field aligned electric currents) circulating within ‘magnetic cloud’. Major characteristics is that it has an enhanced magnetic field, magnitude of which is much higher than the magnetic field of the solar wind in the surrounding areas.
Total power carried by flux rope could exceed 10^33 Joules, making it the most powerful regularly occurring solar event. This power is contained within close circuit starting and ending at solar surface; this close electro-magnetic circuit can extend way beyond the most distant planets.
One would assume that US Naval Research Lab knows what they are talking about:
Recent observations indicate that magnetic field lines of magnetic clouds do remain connected to the Sun and that the field lines toward the outer edge of a flux rope are more twisted [Larson et al., 1997]. This property is implied by the model structure and the magnetic field described below.
http://wwwppd.nrl.navy.mil/prediction/storms.html
there are many other sources of information on the subject.
Perhaps you can challenge Dr.S. to point any inaccuracies in the above.
Geoff, in this illustration from NASA you can see more clearly the SOLAR ELECTRO-MAGNETIC CLOSE CIRCUIT.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=910
When a coronal mass ejection travels into interplanetary space, it can create a huge magnetic cloud containing bidirectional, or counter-streaming, beams of electrons that flow in opposite directions within the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun. The magnetic cloud also drives an upstream shock ahead of it.
http://wwwppd.nrl.navy.mil/prediction/cloud.html
vukcevic says:
January 21, 2011 at 5:20 am
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Thanks Vuks..learning something new everyday.
You might find the next abstract somewhat interesting also. Seems our little reconnection within the heliosphere is happening quite frequent. More during minimum and a thing called “Alfvén wave trains rather than flux ropes.”
SIGNATURES OF MAGNETIC RECONNECTION AT BOUNDARIES OF INTERPLANETARY SMALL-SCALE MAGNETIC FLUX ROPES
“””The interaction between interplanetary small-scale magnetic flux ropes and the magnetic field in the ambient solar wind is an important topic in the understanding of the evolution of magnetic structures in the heliosphere. Through a survey of 125 previously reported small flux ropes from 1995 to 2005, we find that 44 of them reveal clear signatures of Alfvénic fluctuations and thus classify them as Alfvén wave trains rather than flux ropes. Signatures of magnetic reconnection, generally including a plasma jet of ~30 km s–1 within a magnetic field rotational region, are clearly present at boundaries of about 42% of the flux ropes and 14% of the wave trains. The reconnection exhausts are often observed to show a local increase in the proton temperature, density, and plasma beta. About 66% of the reconnection events at flux rope boundaries are associated with a magnetic field shear angle larger than 90° and 73% of them reveal a decrease of 20% or more in the magnetic field magnitude, suggesting a dominance of anti-parallel reconnection at flux rope boundaries. The occurrence rate of magnetic reconnection at flux rope boundaries through the years 1995-2005 is also investigated and we find that it is relatively low around the solar maximum and much higher when approaching solar minima. The average magnetic field depression and shear angle for reconnection events at flux rope boundaries also reveal a similar trend from 1995 to 2005. Our results demonstrate for the first time that boundaries of a substantial fraction of small-scale flux ropes have properties similar to those of magnetic clouds, in the sense that both of them exhibit signatures of magnetic reconnection. The observed reconnection signatures could be related either to the formation of small flux ropes or to the interaction between flux ropes and the interplanetary magnetic fields.”””
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/720/1/454/
late again oh my..
Carla, another excellent find, here is full version:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1007/1007.2247v1.pdf
The paper is dated July 2010
It will take time, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
vukcevic says:
January 21, 2011 at 8:10 am
Carla, another excellent find, here is full version:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1007/1007.2247v1.pdf
The paper is dated July 2010
It will take time, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
~
Thanks again Vuks..got enough to read for half the year, plus have to stay tuned up and get on with the basics. wheww..lots to do..I don’t know if ‘Da Man,’ is going to like all this.
Myself thinking we will find the key to unlock all this solar cycle vari ation. Cause it really varies tooooo much and is tooooo inconsistent bout it’s spots. Hemispherically lately toooo.
vukcevic says:
January 20, 2011 at 1:00 am
And if you think that would work what is the mechanism?
Hathaway doesn’t know what the mechanism is, and I don’t think his method is particularly good. But he should stick to it, if that is what he advocates. The ‘traditional’ mechanism is that the polar fields leading up to the minimum controls the formation of polar field extensions as long-lived coronal holes, which then leads to recurrent high-speed streams. Those cause the peak in geomagnetic axctivity.
Hopefully he might go away, or even better he should give up.
You ought to know: pseudo scientists NEVER give up or go away.
Robuk says:
January 20, 2011 at 3:24 am
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.
Seems to mee, I won the bet. Now it is for you to pay up.
Bryan Clark says:
January 20, 2011 at 10:03 pm
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.
But wouls also be cheating and we don’t do that. 1954 was chosen for a scientific reason, not as propaganda for an agenda. The reason was that there was debate in the solar cycle prediction panel with some predicting a very large cycle. Since 1954 was the minimum just bwefore the biggest, baddest cycle ever observed [cycle 19] I wanted to compare with that one.
vukcevic says:
January 21, 2011 at 5:03 am
One would assume that US Naval Research Lab knows what they are talking about
They do, but you don’t, apparently. “beams of electrons that flow in opposite directions within the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun” means that there is no net current.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 21, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I occasionally do go away, and annoy the climate people.
However, I would appreciate a meaningful discussion of what is represented here :
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=910
having in mind that: beams of electrons that flow in opposite directions within the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun.
-Do you think is there anything questionable in the illustration?
I assume it is representation of normal helical ‘case’ of field and filed aligned currents; if electrons flow in both directions, then must be in two or more (even) number of layers of equal intensity, so OK net current = 0.
-No mention of protons/ions (mainly H & He nucleui, the ejected mass), presumably orange shaded area, detached and moving forward ? surely must also be part of the current – m. field helix ?
vukcevic says:
January 22, 2011 at 2:50 am
However, I would appreciate a meaningful discussion of what is represented here
I don’t think a meaningful discussion is possible. I can tell you what the physics is, but that is not open for discussion any more than Maxwell’s equations: take’em or leave’em.
To understand what is going on, you have to understand how the Van Allen Belt operates: charged particles bounce back and forth between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. If you are sitting somewhere in the belt near the equator, you’ll see counterstreaming charges go by you in both directions [no net current, no helical stuff, or any of other other things you fantasize about]. In the magnetic cloud you see precisely the same phenomenon; that is how we know that the loop is closed. The electrons bounce thousands of times back and forth. They are energetic electrons, not solar wind or even magnetic cloud related.
vukcevic says:
January 22, 2011 at 2:50 am
However, I would appreciate a meaningful discussion of what is represented here
You can learn more about this here:
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 116, A01104, 13 PP., 2011
doi:10.1029/2010JA015328
Solar energetic electron probes of magnetic cloud field line lengths
S. W. Kahler, S. Krucker, A. Szabo
Magnetic clouds (MCs) are large interplanetary coronal mass ejections of enhanced and low-variance fields with rotations indicative of magnetic flux ropes originally connected to the Sun. The MC flux rope models require field lines with larger pitch angles and longer lengths with increasing distance from the MC axis. While the models can provide good fits to the in situ solar wind observations, there have not been definitive observational tests of the global magnetic field geometry, particularly for the field line lengths. However, impulsive solar energetic (E > 10 keV) electron events occasionally occur within an MC, and the electron onsets can be used to infer Le, the magnetic field line lengths traveled by the electrons from the Sun to the points in the MC where the electron onsets occur. We selected 8 MCs in and near which 30 solar electron events were observed by the 3DP instrument on the Wind spacecraft. We compared the corresponding Le values with calculated model field line lengths to test two MC models. Some limitations on the technique are imposed by variations of the models and uncertainly about MC boundary locations. We found generally poor correlations between the computed electron path lengths and the model field line lengths. Only one value of Le inside an MC, that of 18 October 1995, exceeded 3.2 AU, indicating an absence of the long path lengths expected in the highly wound outer regions of MC models. We briefly consider the implications for MC models.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 22, 2011 at 8:32 am
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Now don’t get your underware in a bundle over this. Purpose is just to show how, where flux ropes and magnetic reconnection occur in interplanetary space, perhaps interstellar space and most likely at interface space. lol
Vuks has his theory, so be it.
My superficial curiosity on the formation of flux ropes and reconnection has been satisfied in the following:
“””Signatures of magnetic reconnection at boundaries of interplanetary small-scale magnetic flux ropes
Hui Tian1, Shuo Yao1, Qiugang Zong1, Jiansen He2, Yu Qi1
pg. 18-19
3.4. Origin of interplanetary small-scale magnetic flux ropes
There is a debate on the origin of interplanetary small-scale magnetic flux ropes. Moldwin et al.
(2000) and Cartwright & Moldwin (2008) suggested that these small flux ropes are produced
through interplanetary magnetic reconnection. While others proposed that they are interplanetary
manifestations of small-scale solar eruptions (Feng et al. 2007, 2008; Wu et al.
2008). Wei et al. (2003) and Pick et al. (2005) mentioned that the magnetic field lines of
relatively large flux ropes originating from the Sun could be peeled off through magnetic
reconnection away from the Sun. Feng & Wu (2009) reported a small flux rope followed by
a reconnection exhaust, and suggested that the small flux rope is produced through this
peeling off process.
Compared to Feng & Wu (2009), our statistic result provides many more cases of small
flux ropes with signatures of magnetic reconnection at their boundaries. Our result reveals
clearly that magnetic reconnection is common at the interfaces between small flux ropes
and the ambient medium. However, it is still an open question whether this reconnection is
related to the formation of small flux ropes or not. In the scenario suggested by Feng & Wu
(2009), the flux rope can be diminished in size due to reconnection with the ambient magnetic
field as it moves from the Sun to the Earth. However, such shrinking has not been directly
observed in interplanetary space. On the contrary, large-scale flux ropes such as magnetic
clouds usually show a decrease in the measured plasma velocity as they pass the spacecraft,
indicating an expansion in size when moving away from the Sun (e.g., Lepping et al. 2006).
A recent study of Cartwright & Moldwin (2010) completed a comprehensive survey of interplanetary
small flux ropes observed between 0.3 and 5.5 AU using the Helios, IMP8, WIND,
ACE, and Ulysses data, and found that on average the size of small flux ropes expands
rapidly within 1 AU and then reaches equilibrium in the outer heliosphere. These results
seem to indicate that the expansion process dominates over the peeling off process for flux
ropes originating from the Sun, which is inconsistent with the scenario that small flux ropes
are produced through the peeling off of magnetic field lines in the outer layers of magnetic
clouds.
In the Earth magnetospheric studies, multiple X line reconnection (Lee et al. 1985) is
believed to be responsible for the observed flux rope chains in the plasma sheet of the magnetotail
(e.g., Slavin et al. 2003; Zong et al. 2004; Eastwood et al. 2005; Liu et al. 2009).
In principle flux ropes could also be produced through a similar process in interplanetary
space. Observations reveal that small-scale flux ropes lack a signature of expansion
and are not depressed in proton temperature, which are distinctly different from magnetic
clouds. Moreover, some small flux ropes were observed near the sector crossing (Heliospheric
current sheet crossing). These observational facts seem to support the idea that
the small flux ropes are produced through magnetic reconnection across the Heliospheric
current sheet (Moldwin et al. 2000; Cartwright & Moldwin 2008, 2010). Using the similar
method of Cartwright & Moldwin (2010), we also investigated the time difference between
small-scale flux ropes listed in Feng et al. (2008) and the nearest sector crossing. Among the
81 flux ropes, we could only identify 35 events with clear sector crossing signature nearby.
While Cartwright & Moldwin (2010) identified clear sector crossing signature in 71 cases
out of the total 91 flux ropes. Cartwright & Moldwin (2010) presented the distribution of
the time to the nearest sector crossing, and found a sharp peak with 17 flux ropes observed
– 19 –
within 6 hours of a sector crossing. Among the 35 events we investigated, we found 9 flux
ropes observed within 6 hours of a sector crossing, but also found 18 flux ropes observed
beyond one day of the nearest sector crossing. The fact that some flux ropes are very close
to sector crossing and some others are far away from clear sector crossing, as demonstrated
both in Cartwright & Moldwin (2010) and our investigation, suggests that a subset of the
small-scale interplanetary flux ropes are likely to be produced through reconnection across
the heliospheric current sheet. If the current sheet is locally tilted with respect to the passage
of the spacecraft, the typical reconnection signature of one plasma jet within a current sheet
should also be registered at boundaries of newly formed flux ropes.
The scenario of solar origin could also be the case for some..”””
hmmm interplanetary space is messy, too..
I have done a scan of 50+ authoritative papers on the magnetic clouds and many make reference to axial , toroidal or ring currents and current sheet within structure of magnetic clouds.
Most quoted paper is by LEPPING et al from Laboratory for Solar and Space Physics NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
Here is direct quote from paper:
A summary of WIND magnetic clouds for years 1995-2003 : model-fitted parameters, associated errors and classifications
MCs (magnetic clouds) are just under one day long, are 1/4AU in diameter, have a broad distribution of axial directions with a slight preference for alignment with the Y-axis(GSE), have axial fluxes of 10^21Mx, have axial current densities of about 2μA/km2, and carry a total axial current (IT ) of about a billion amps.
NASA: MAGNETIC CLOUD BOUNDARY TIMES AS DETERMINED BY MFI DATA
http://wind.nasa.gov/mfi/mag_cloud_pub1.html
The table consists of estimated start and end times that were estimated by a magnetic field model [Lepping et al., 1990] that assumes that the field within the magnetic cloud is force free, i.e., so that the electrical current and the magnetic field are parallel and proportional in strength everywhere within its volume.
This would directly contradict Dr. Svalgaards statement: that there is no net current.
vukcevic says:
January 22, 2011 at 3:10 pm
This would directly contradict Dr. Svalgaards statement: that there is no net current.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Whenever you have boundaries in a plasma there will be currents, e.g. the HCS. What I pointed out was that the counterstreaming electrons you were so fond of do not constitute a current.