This should be interesting. At least they aren’t putting Dikpati on the panel. The scene from the movie “The Wizard of Oz” where after the residents of Emerald City see strange writings in the sky and shout “the Wizard will explain it!” come to mind.
MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-043
NASA RESCHEDULES TELECONFERENCE TO EXPLAIN MISSING SUNSPOTS
WASHINGTON — NASA has rescheduled a media teleconference for 2 p.m.
EST on Wednesday, March 2, to discuss the first computer model that
explains the recent period of decreased solar activity during the
sun’s 11-year cycle. The recent solar minimum, a period characterized
by a lower frequency of sunspots and solar storms, ended in 2008 and
was the deepest observed in almost 100 years.The teleconference panelists are:
— Richard Fisher, director, Heliophysics Division, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
— Dibyendu Nandi, assistant professor, Indian Institute of Science
Education and Research, Kolkata, India
— Andres Munoz-Jaramillo, visiting research fellow,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
— Delores Knipp, visiting scientist, University of Colorado at
Boulder
Supporting information for the briefing will be posted at:
Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on the Web at:
===============================================
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
Perhaps NASA should show some interest my current project investigating a possible link between magnetic storms and acceleration of the earthquake occurrences.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
Some comments by David Hathaway in response to the work described in Nandy, Muñoz-Jaramillo & Martens (2011), and Nandy’s response, and Hathaway’s response to the response, appear here:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/spotless-sun-model/
So the Indians have cracked the mystery of a spotless sun? Quite comical really and more NASA hype. In reality they still have no idea.
The only bit they got right was this:
At the same time, the heating action of UV rays normally provided by sunspots was absent, so Earth’s upper atmosphere began to cool and collapse.
More research dollars are required in the EUV area instead of setting up kids models that prove nothing.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solar-cycle23.html
Researchers Crack the Mystery of the Spotless Sun
It was a big event, and solar physicists openly wondered, where have all the sunspots gone?
Now they know.
Such certainty, such hype, such arrogance.
Perhaps it doesn’t work quite the way you think it does.
Oh flip – all this solar inactivity and sicussion means I will have to do some background reading (again!) – isn’t TSI only supposed to vary by 0.1% or something???? 🙂
bubbagyro says:
March 2, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Leif has spoken in support of 10.7 correlating well with various sunspot counts, but that we should use 10.7 for modern era comparisons. Especially if the L&P effect continues to make sunspots fade which of course will foul up the correlation.
It’s not clear to me you understand what Leif and I are referring to with L&P. See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/18/suns-magnetics-remain-in-a-funk-sunspots-may-be-on-their-way-out/ . Note that just because sunspots are fading from view doesn’t mean the magnetic structures behind them disappear too, they just weakens somewhat.
Marc:
Not to worry. People think of these spots as two-dimensional plates floating around. Think of them as tornadoes.
Just like a tornado connects the lower atmosphere with the ground, so do these magnetic vortexes. Depending on the speed of the wall cloud, we see the tornadoes as straight down to the ground, or stretched out and extruded in sinusoidal shapes.
So sunspots may be liked to an interior region, moving at a different speed than the coronasphere. This lower region is spawned by a deeper region through some chaotic arrangement.
Kev-in-Uk says:
March 2, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Irradiance varies 0.2% peak to valley. However, that is during known history. Now satellites can measure irradiance above the atmosphere. UV, though, is a different matter. It can vary almost 10% peak to trough—again, recent history, so we really don’t know much about ancient history.
This paper is the usual NASA nonsense. It doesn’t explain solar cycle memory or a few other things. There is a paper coming out this year that does, and it is based on the force that dare not speak its name.
Instead of falling back on some unproven mystical “L&P Effect” it is better to look at the changing relationship between F10.7 flux and sunspots. February was a mixed month with spotless periods, strong activity (with strong magnetism) along with many speck groups. The stronger flare activity during Feb saw the F10.7 value rise higher in proportion to the sunspot number, which is the opposite of what we have witnessed during the last 12 months. The type of sunspot has a bearing on the flux/sunspot ratio, unipolar groups tend to have less flares along with lower flux and EUV output. The unipolar groups dominated from last June till Jan 2011, with Feb showing a big change. But we saw this last Feb and looking at the current solar face I see the beginnings of more unipolar groups?
Ric Werme says:
March 2, 2011 at 2:49 pm
I do understand. I am just saying that we are not able to associate past climate events with the new knowledge. We can only draw upon the sunspot observations 400 years in the past. It will take 50 years or more to try to draw a correlation with climate, using the new data.
I think Layman’s is on the right track, for pragmatic reasons. Of course, it is “dumbing down” the data. But historically, we only have such data to look at. We will see if the Layman’s number holds in the next 20-30 years. More important than that, I would like to find out why there is a sunspot cycle. It looks to me that the center of mass of the sun due to pulls of the large planets has shown a compelling correlation with solar activity.
If we had F10.7 values from the 1800s, for example, I would agree that the correlation, or lack thereof, would be more useful as a predictor than SSN.
Leif, does the polarity of the sunspots affect anything? I have seen recently that some of the spots have reversed polarity on are neutral and this seems odd. Does it go with a weaker sun? Does anyone know?
Real question: Does anyone on planet earth really know?
bubbagyro says:
March 2, 2011 at 1:18 pm
I don’t know what the “tipping point” for glaciation is, but I don’t believe anyone knows that. I just know from geology that interglacial periods are short compared to glacial. Interglacials seem to average around the span of this Holocene.
The slide into a glaciation is slow, if not to say ‘glacial’. It will take tens of thousands of years to get there.
bubbagyro says:
March 2, 2011 at 1:26 pm
So, you are saying there is no correlation between traditional sunspot numbers and F10.7 radiation?
The correlation there was from 1947 until ca. 1996 is there no more. See: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Microwaves-at-23-24-Minimum.pdf or http://www.leif.org/research/Eddy-Symp-Poster-1.pdf
Interesting—that means that F10.7 has no predictive value, since we did not have F10.7 data in the past, but we do have sunspot numbers (Wolf type values).
See the second link I just gave.
vukcevic says:
March 2, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Perhaps NASA should show some interest my current project investigating a possible link between magnetic storms and acceleration of the earthquake occurrences.
I don’t think they will waste any effort on that.
bubbagyro says:
March 2, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I think Layman’s is on the right track
The Layman’s sunspot count is uncalibrated junk, and is built on a false premise [namely that Wolf observed during the Dalton Minimum].
If we had F10.7 values from the 1800s, for example, I would agree that the correlation, or lack thereof, would be more useful as a predictor than SSN.
F10.7 is a VERY good indicator for solar EUV. EUV creates and maintains the ionosphere and provides the ionization for the regular daily variation of the geomagnetic field, for which we have data back into the 18th century. So we know what F10.7 was back then.
Rhyl Dearden says:
March 2, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Leif, does the polarity of the sunspots affect anything? I have seen recently that some of the spots have reversed polarity on are neutral and this seems odd. Does it go with a weaker sun? Does anyone know?
The polarity as such does not affect anything. Some 3% of all spots are ‘reversed’ regardless of solar activity.
“””””Rhyl Dearden says:
March 2, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Leif, does the polarity of the sunspots affect anything? I have seen recently that some of the spots have reversed polarity on are neutral and this seems odd. Does it go with a weaker sun? Does anyone know? “””””
No idea; BUT so far as I know, the earth’s magnetic Polarity does NOT reverse every 11 or so years like sunspots do. So to my simple brain, the vector sum of the solar magnetic field, and the earth magnetic field, may not be the same from one 11 year sunspot cycle to the next. That might have some effect on charged particle flux arriving at earth. But as I said at the outset; I have no idea.
Probably Dr Svalgaard would know.
EUV is a FAIRLY good indicator of F10.7 flux as this daily graph shows.
Mr.Leif Svalgaard:
Very O/T, but have you read this post??:
Dave Andrews (Comment#71068)
March 2nd, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Where’s Lief Svalgaard when you need him?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
link: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/agreeing/#comments
i think it is very serious…
George E. Smith says:
March 2, 2011 at 4:42 pm
So to my simple brain, the vector sum of the solar magnetic field, and the earth magnetic field, may not be the same from one 11 year sunspot cycle to the next.
As Einstein said “make it as simple as possible, not no simpler”. So, it is not as simple as the vector sum, but there is an effect of the change of the polar fields of the Sun. As explained in section 9 of http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf there is a ’22-yr cycle’ in geomagnetic activity in the sense that from polar field reversal [near solar max] in even-numbered cycles to the next polar field reversal [odd-numbered cycle] geomagnetic activity is on average about 20% higher than during the time from odd-numbered to even-numbered cycle. The cosmic ray intensity is also a few percent lower [by a completely different mechanism]. All this is reasonably well understood [in terms of basic physics], albeit by rather complex chains of logic.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 2, 2011 at 4:56 pm
EUV is a FAIRLY good indicator of F10.7 flux as this daily graph shows.
On a daily basis, the indicator is fair. On a monthly basis, it is EXCELLENT.
jorge c. says:
March 2, 2011 at 5:03 pm
link: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/agreeing/#comments
i think it is very serious…
I think it is very simple: there is no evidence for a ‘background’ trend in TSI.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 2, 2011 at 5:21 pm
On a daily basis, the indicator is fair. On a monthly basis, it is EXCELLENT.
The point is that EUV, F10.7 flux and sunspots do not all come from the same source. Yes they are a product of magnetism but are produced in different ways. In particular it does not make sense to compare F10.7 flux with sunspots looking for some kind of validation for a “junk theory”.
mr. Leif Svalgaard:
Thank you!!!!!!!
Geoff Sharp says:
March 2, 2011 at 5:47 pm
In particular it does not make sense to compare F10.7 flux with sunspots looking for some kind of validation for a “junk theory”.
F10.7 has a component that is produced by the magnetic fields above sunspots and so is a VERY good indicator of that magnetic field from the spots. It is true that F10.7 is not a good indicator of whether that magnetic field results in a visible spot. In other words, the sunspot number is always not a good indicator of solar activity. But F10.7 is.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 2, 2011 at 6:03 pm
In other words, the sunspot number is not always a good indicator of solar activity. But F10.7 is.
Is how it should have been said.