From the Marshall Space Flight Center, Dr. Hathaway’s page:
Current prediction for the next sunspot cycle maximum gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 58 in July of 2013. We are currently two years into Cycle 24 and the predicted size continues to fall.
Additionally, the monthly data plots are out, and there’s been little change from last month in the three major solar indexes plotted by the Space Weather Prediction Center:
h/t to WUWT reader harrywr2
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I just reviewed the present sunspot activity for the last 3 years recorded with great instruments compared to the two solar minimums of 1700 to 1722 and 1798 to 1822. The present cycle is looking cooler than the 1700 cycle, but warmer than the 1800 minimum.
It will be interesting to record the climate time lag from the Peak periods of data in global warming, such as hurricane activity and glacier melt and see how rapidly it changes in the next 28 cold years. We should see a gradual decline in hurricane activity, lost of precipitation, longer colder winters and some glacier and Ice Cap recovery.
There is a down side and that is a thinning of the herd due to cold and lost of crops. We can lay the blame for this at the feet of global warming alarmists who have turned our governing officials in the wrong direction.
By the time they turn around, well, it probably is too late already.
Wish you all well and stay prepared.
rbateman says:
February 9, 2011 at 10:12 pm
In contrast to the sunspot #, the sunspot area has increased slightly over the last year, while the F10.7 Flux has perceptibly stood still.
At low solar activity the various indices are noisy and should be treated with caution. I keep track of several things as you can see here: http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Days.png
I count active regions [from SWPC], plot sunspot numbers [Ri from Brussels], sunspot areas [all of these scaled – as indicated – to match each other] and of the microwave flux from Canada and from Japan. The microwave flux is also noisy and has various systematic errors [not all understood] so show some discrepancies [up to 5 flux units]. The bottom line is that the various indicators largely agree, but that there is enough noise and variation that it does not make any sense to dwell to much on the finer details.
G’day Anthony. I’m looking at a book by your co-presenter on the Australian tour, David Archibald. Page 53 of his book “The Past and Future of Climate” has a graph of his prediction for SC24 which looks very like the NASA prediction except that his was prepared 12 months or more ago. He also predicts that SC25 may be just as weak leading to a repeat of the Dalton Minimum. If that should happen the AGW scam will be so forgotten in the scramble to grow sufficient food in a cooling world. Increased CO2 may help offset the shorter growing season.
This would be a good time to bet on cooling for the coming decade.
Now we are able to see the total area of the sun we can do a proper count and not rely on some fool model.
Leif,
I think the current solar cycle has so far only proven to be a weak cycle. It has not proven yet the L&P effect. This summary can illustrate my opinion.
Decisions of the Solar Cycle Prediction Centre Panel of
– March 2007:
sunspot number of 140 in October 2011; F10.7 = 187 sfu, or
sunspot number of 90 in August 2012; F10.7 = 141 sfu.
– May 2008: idem
– May 2009: sunspot number of 90 in May 2013; F10,7 = 141 sfu.
– February 2011: sunspot number of 58 in July 2013; F10,7 = 120 sfu.
The issue at stake is not the L&P effect but the very low activity of the sun so far. Your argument is that the sunspot number is falling progressively below the sunspot number corresponding to the microwave flux. I see only that both, the sunspot number and 10.7 flux, are low. I think that so far, the standard relation between both is not broken.
Right??
E. M. Smith;
Just a nit pick, but British Empire, not English.
Strong cycles are front-loaded and short, weak cycles are symmetrical and long. This cycle is very weak, so it will be symmetrical and long. If it is twelve years long, then solar maximum will be in 2015. I calculate peak F10.7 flux of 105.
E.M. Smith 11:07:
“….production in the English Empire…..”
Please, please don’t say “English Empire” – it was the British Empire – because you’ll upset all the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and it’ll take us ages to get them back in their boxes again. 🙂
Is there any reason why the red lines on the graphs above, showing the predicted values, have not been updated?
I still don’t see how Marshall come up with the maximum in July 2013 for mine keeps coming up March-April of 2015. How can a cycle that was declared to have starting in Sept. 2009 hit the next maximum less than four years later? I always thought the maximums were generally symmetrically centered in the 11 year cycle or 5 ½ years from the beginning.
EM Smith
I can read your chart of wheat prices, plus your indicators (MACD etc).
I don’t see a comparison of wheat vs Sunspots.
Do you have one? – it sounds interesting!
I recall Jevons from economics, but not more than his name (long time ago, I’m afraid).
I presume the idea is that high SS indicates favourable climate for wheat growing, which means low prices. The reverse for low SS >>>> low production >>>> high prices.
I also presume that wheat needs the right heat (temperature???), water, soil, atmospheric CO2 levels, and that timing of each is also important.
In Australia, poor rain is the usual limiting factor and by at least my reckoning, when its hot, its dry and when its cold, its wet.
But I know that timing of rainfall is vital.
I can’t put that all together in my mind.
Can you add any more to the story?
Thanks
I believe there has been work, which may still be underway, to observe other stars that fall into the same classification as the Sun’s in order to determine if they cycle in a similar fashion as the Sun. If so, has this given any indication of confirming or simply confounding theories of why the Sun cycles? I’d guess there are large variations but there is perhaps a sub-class that “fits”.
DaveF says, February 10, 2011 at 1:49 am:
E.M. Smith 11:07:
“….production in the English Empire…..”
Please, please don’t say “English Empire” – it was the British Empire – because you’ll upset all the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and it’ll take us ages to get them back in their boxes again. 🙂
****************************
Well, you can’t make me go back into my box, saes!
🙂
(For those not able to speak the language of heaven – ‘saes’ means ‘English person’ in Welsh)
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
‘there you go again’
I often don’t, but when I do fail
I look for a bail,
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
Thanks God for the flux F10.
Layman’s count is a ‘bore’
don’t, don’t mention it any more !
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
my prediction was good now and then
Livingston and Penn, Livingston and Penn
please be true, couldn’t bear to fail again.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&P1.htm
Follow the solar action here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
What is a prediction? And can we get a penalty assessed for making bad predictions like they did in olden times? Say for every bad one, we cut off one digit.
Seems like NASA predictions now just predict what has already happened. How much money do you need to draw a graph?
Paul Pierett writes:@ur momisugly
“We can lay the blame for this at the feet of global warming alarmists who have turned our governing officials in the wrong direction.”
Well said, sir. If we put ourselves in the place of those governing officials, who would be brave enough to reject the scientific advice and claim to know better?
Future generations will look back and ask how on earth did the likes of Maurice Strong manage to pervert the infant science of climatology. In the US you have the noble expression, “I’m from Missouri”; in Britain we say “nullius in verba” (yeah, we speak Latin down the pub ev’ry day).
It’s about time that real science dissacociated itself from the numerological neoapocalyptic (pause for breath…) rantings of this pseudoscience.
As ever, the brilliant cartoonist Josh said it most clearly in one picture worth a thousand words:
http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/page2.html (5th one down)
The “model” is what the eye can see and count, looking through a small telescope. The adjustments made to these observations are done only to harmonize perceived historical biases with current-day counts.
In any case, the two STEREO spacecraft don’t have visible-light imagers, so can’t see the sunspots directly. They are equipped with extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imagers, which can see a lot more magnetic activity, but can’t quantitatively distinguish which active regions would be visible as visible sunspots.
“David Archibald says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:47 am
If it is twelve years long, then solar maximum will be in 2015.”
Leif, what are your thoughts on the timing of sunspot and flux maximum? Are we rapidly nearing maximum (2012/2013) or is the ascent going to be prolonged to a peak in 2015?
Tis good to see David Archibald himself contributing, cos I can’t find his book ‘The Past and Future of Climate’ on either ABEBOOKS.com or Amazon.co.uk.
I hope he sees this, and puts me wise.
Stan in San Francisco says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Leif wrote, “The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.”
Right, I meant sunspot number in the previous post (4:37 am).
Lief: “The Layman’s count is junk that lacks an adequate calibration and is based on poor understanding of solar activity.”
********************************************************************
“No, they have not. The hubris was more on the part of HAO and NASA than on the part of the scientists. In fact, a bold prediction like that is good science as it allows falsification.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around these statements taken in tandem. For better or worse, one of the things that Geoff’s site does is set forth some very falsifiable implicit or explicit predictions about current trends in solar activity, and hence climate. I wonder why it is that he gets assailed as proffering “junk” while whoever is responsible for the botched predictions at NASA is producing “good science” because they got it wrong.
Perhaps one of the things that is so disturbing about Landscheit et al is that they set forth a model in which the sun is not an island unto itself, but is actually being influenced in perceptible ways by the massive objects which it holds in orbit: gravitational influence is multi- not unidirectional. Is it possible we are still living with a hangover from Ptolmaic perceptions that cosmic realities are maps of social life? Now that the earth has been dethroned, do we need to see the sun as primer inter pares, untouched (and untouchable) by mere mortals like Jupiter or Neptune?
If one goes to SIDC, download their Minimum data for the 1700 to 1722 and 1798 to 1822, graph it, the high points are centered in roughly 11 year cycles.
One had a peak and on the others were somewhat different. One looks like a mound. They lack the design of the global warming cycles such as from 1933 to 1963 and from 1975 to 2007.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
So because its your theory Leif that makes it absolute? Whats next? Don’t believe your lyin eyes you just cant see the sunspots? Oh wait….
Leif 9:15
“No, they have not. The hubris was more on the part of HAO and NASA than on the part of the scientists. In fact, a bold prediction like that is good science as it allows falsification.”
It may allow falsification. With simple yes or no science, you can get it right with the wrong mechanism – even a guess can be perfectly correct. One of my favourite in soft science where the prognosticator is correct every time is a belief among Hausa (and possibly other peoples) that a pregnant mother who looks upon a chameleon will have a child that is a social misfit and will bring shame upon the family.