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 have this completely unscientific gut feeling that we are at or near solar max right now. I guess time will tell.
….the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux. The flux is predicted to top ~120 in mid 2013 and seems well on its way to that.
It looks like 4-5 solar cycles.
I find it rather amazing that they can predict the value when they can’t even correctly predict the timing!! 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 pick several and make a regression analysis to each/all of them.
Are we sure that Al Gore isn’t involved in this???
In 1970, the Solar constant was “declared”. Over and over again, “the Sun doesn’t affect the Earth’s Climate. Why do we care about the Sun; if we aren’t concerned about its effects??
According to SpaceWeather.com, we are only concerned about CMEs. That darned Sun is going to affect our communications/power grid again…
microwaves….
Isn´t it that these are produced when we plug our microwave oven to the mains (electricity)?
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:50 pm
As we have discussed many times the ‘real’ indicator of solar activity is the the F10.7 microwave flux.
A striking feature (at least to me) of the 10.7 plot plot is that since the start of 2008 +/-, there seems to be unusually low variance in the curve. It is clear that variance is somewhat proportional to amplitude (high amplitude = high variance & vice versa) but as the amplitude has been climbing in this solar cycle, the variance is almost non-existent.
Leif, is this a significant observation & if it is, what is it telling us?
Brent Hargreaves says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:51 am
….climate science……hedge funds?
Rik Gheysens says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:42 am
“…The issue at stake is not the L&P effect but the very low activity of the sun so far…”
Other indicators of solar performance level also show this lack of activity – AP index, solar wind strength and amount of UV. I’m more concerned about the impact of these factors on Earth climate, rather than understanding the L&P effect. As most of the population of the world lives in the NH, this is where cooling will have the greatest impact on humanity.
vukcevic says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:40 am
Good poetry!
I thot CMEs were more influential than sunspots.
The CMEs affecting the solar wind and hence cosmic rays, which affect our atmosphere’s clouds etc. and so on …………
Will someone knowledgable please address this point.
Thanks.
Are the previous predictions by NASA archived? I would like to see the graphs of the previous predictions or a comparison of the predictions on one presentation.
Such loose talk shouldn’t be allowed on this blog.
As far as NASA revising their prediction: They’re tasked with keeping a current solar cycle forecast. They must keep revising it to keep it as accurate as possible. Yes, they’ve been wrong by a huge amount for several years now, all on the high side, but since a grand solar minimum seems to be underway, that’s hardly surprising.
As others have pointed out: At least they make concrete predictions.
My advice to Leif:
Please stick to “science” and don’t get involved with “judgements” (i.e. Layman’s Count or HAO/NASA). Allow us to decide what is “junk” or whether NASA practices “good science”.
Rik Gheysens says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:42 am
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.
It is not an argument but an observational fact.
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Microwaves-at-23-24-Minimum.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/SHINE-2010-Microwave-Flux.pdf
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session6/6.03_Tapping_F10.7.pdf
cedarhill says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:33 am
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”.
There is such work. See some of the talks given here:
http://www.lowell.edu/workshops/SolarAnalogsII/
John Day says:
February 10, 2011 at 3:54 am
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.
Most of Rudolf Wolf’s sunspot numbers were determined with the telescope in the lower left:
It has an aperture of 4 cm and a magnification of 40 times, and is still in use today.
Mr. Alex says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:37 am
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?
Weak cycles often have poorly defined maxima. A typical example is cycle 14: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14.png
The solar polar fields reverse near maximum and they have recently decreased significantly in strength signalling that the maximum is not too far off. I’ll guess 2013.5.
psi says:
February 10, 2011 at 4:42 am
Geoff’s site does is set forth some very falsifiable implicit or explicit predictions about current trends in solar activity, and hence climate.
The issue is not the predictions. but simply the Layman’s Sunspot Count. It is supposed to be closer to Wolf’s original method. When Wolfer changed the counting method in 1894 he determined by used 16 years of simultaneous measurements by Wolf that a factor of 0.6 should be applied to the newer method to put in on the Wolf scale. Later observers have followed that. Wolf’s telescopes [see comment above] still exists [I looked through them a couple of weeks ago] and are still being used for counting spots. There are no indications that the current counts are artificially inflated [which seems to be the rationale for the LSC]. The LSC works by postulating that there is a threshold in sunspot size under which the spot should not be counted. This is a valid assumption. What is wrong about the LSC is that we do not know what that threshold is. The value used is picked out of thin air without justification and that is what makes the LSC ‘junk’.
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
The influence can be calculated and is extremely small, simply because the outer planets are so far away from the Sun. Were the planets much closer or much larger there would be observable consequences, see e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1730
pkatt says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:18 am
So because its your theory Leif that makes it absolute?
Of course not. See http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/ for more on solar cycle prediction [especially section 2.2].
If you would like to see graphs of the 1700 and 1800 Minimums, go to pages 39 and 40 of Lower Sunspot Activity Cools Global Warming, nationalforestlawblog.com. October 2009 Newsletter, under my name.
Paul
As an amateur radio operator, I hope Leif is right in his f10.7 prediction compared to the SSN. I’d rather it were higher, but anything is better than being stuck in the 80’s.
E.M. Smith: thanks for the JJG link. I’ve now got to look and see if I can restructure my IRA investments somewhat.
Gary Pearse says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:36 am
Jeff L says:
February 10, 2011 at 5:48 am
A striking feature (at least to me) of the 10.7 plot plot is that since the start of 2008 +/-, there seems to be unusually low variance in the curve.
It seems to me that the flux varies quite a lot recently: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
Now, there are various systematic [and not understood] errors in the F10.7 flux as measured in Penticton. Here is a good example: http://www.leif.org/research/F107-Sawteeth.png the jagged ‘teeth’ you see are artificial: the flux is measured three times a day [morning, noon, afternoon] and the values are systematically different. As the Sun doesn’t know about what time it is in Penticton [Canada], the teeth must be in the instrument or the reduction software. If you plot the difference between the afternoon and morning values you see that it is seasonal: http://www.leif.org/research/F107-sawteeth-2.png being largest in local winter. More disturbingly, it changed sign in the middle of 2008 when the software was upgraded [the lager variance around 2001 was of course because it was solar max and the values were much larger]. So, it is also clear that speculations about small variations in F10.7 have to be seen in the light of the systematic errors we see present [at Pentiction, but not at Nobeyama (Japan) where the microwave flux is also measured].
For the last several days, I have been looking at the cue ball Sun pictures at Spaceweather and seeing sunspot numbers of 50+, such as today’s 67. Yes, I know, there’s a formula, etc., but it’s still very funny. Seems to be only weakly connected with reality.
I’m still waiting for NASA to declare the spots ARE there, but the LP effect has rendered them invisible, so we have to count them even though we can’t see them. If we start counting every plage we could get way up into the hundreds.
Hi Anthony,
Title s/b:
NASADr. Hathaway revisesthehis sunspot prediction down againI questioned this in an earlier post and Dr. Svalgaard confirmed that NASA doesn’t make Sun Spot predictions.
Its Dr. Hathaway who is making predictions using his personal NASA website – an unfunded pet project. His website has some great information but if you check the lower right corner of each page you’ll see its he and not NASA who is making the predictions.
REPLY: Thanks – news to me. Will adjust – Anthony
Viv Evans 3:35am:
“Well, you can’t make me go back in my box, saes!
Actually, Viv, although I was born in England, my father was Welsh and my mother Scottish, so I’m entitled to be both gloomy and tight-fisted. 🙂
Sam Glasser says:
February 10, 2011 at 6:32 am
Please stick to “science” and don’t get involved with “judgements” (i.e. Layman’s Count or HAO/NASA). Allow us to decide what is “junk” or whether NASA practices “good science”.
There are judgments in science related to scientific value. Does a claim meet minimum standard in justification? If not, it is ‘junk’. As a practicing scientist I am qualified to judge what is good and bad science. You are, of course, welcome to ignore my judgment; your loss.
Anthony, It is very good to do this update, but for some of us to make comment and analysis we would need short chart in comparison with long charts of sunspots.
For example, one sunspot cycle, last 5 cycles, last 15 cycles, last 30 cycles . . .
The Layman’s count of sunspots is valuable.
We are in a solar minimum. When we are in a solar minimum the historic record shows that it gets cold outside.
Because Layman’s count compares to the last solar minimum during the Little Ice Age, we can test the many theories regarding the sun’s space weather pattern.
We live in the Sun’s atmosphere. The Sun’s weather is our weather.
Even sunspot data is not immune to bias, but it is harder to fudge than temp data.
A good measure is the F10.7, I suppose impossible to monkey with that. F10.7 looks like we are heading into a death spiral, and the -23 degrees this morning in NE Oklahoma reinforces that notion in my mind.
Gosh, a huge gaseous orb energized by fusion is seemingly chaotic. Go figure.
Dr. Svalgaard,
You state that F10.7 flux is the best measure of solar activity; is it the best measure of solar magnetic activity?
One of the reasons I ask, is because Mike Lockwood and other UK and German physicists discovered (rediscovered?) a link between low solar magnetic output and cold winters in the UK and Europe during the past 350 years.