Researchers Crack the Mystery of the Missing Sunspots
March 2, 2011: In 2008-2009, sunspots almost completely disappeared for two years. Solar activity dropped to hundred-year lows; Earth’s upper atmosphere cooled and collapsed; the sun’s magnetic field weakened, allowing cosmic rays to penetrate the Solar System in record numbers. It was a big event, and solar physicists openly wondered, where have all the sunspots gone?
Now they know. An answer is being published in the March 3rd edition of Nature.
In this artistic cutaway view of the sun, the Great Conveyor Belt appears as a set of black loops connecting the stellar surface to the interior. Credit: Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard CfA
“Plasma currents deep inside the sun interfered with the formation of sunspots and prolonged solar minimum,” says lead author Dibyendu Nandi of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata. “Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”
For years, solar physicists have recognized the importance of the sun’s “Great Conveyor Belt.” A vast system of plasma currents called ‘meridional flows’ (akin to ocean currents on Earth) travel along the sun’s surface, plunge inward around the poles, and pop up again near the sun’s equator. These looping currents play a key role in the 11-year solar cycle. When sunspots begin to decay, surface currents sweep up their magnetic remains and pull them down inside the star; 300,000 km below the surface, the sun’s magnetic dynamo amplifies the decaying magnetic fields. Re-animated sunspots become buoyant and bob up to the surface like a cork in water—voila! A new solar cycle is born.
For the first time, Nandi’s team believes they have developed a computer model that gets the physics right for all three aspects of this process–the magnetic dynamo, the conveyor belt, and the buoyant evolution of sunspot magnetic fields.
OK. Plenty of belief here, but does it have predictive power?
“According to our model, the trouble with sunspots actually began in back in the late 1990s during the upswing of Solar Cycle 23,” says co-author Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “At that time, the conveyor belt sped up.”
Sunspot cycles over the last century. The blue curve shows the cyclic variation in the number of sunspots. Red bars show the cumulative number of sunspot-less days. The minimum of sunspot cycle 23 was the longest in the space age with the largest number of spotless days. Credit: Dibyendu Nandi et al.
The fast-moving belt rapidly dragged sunspot corpses down to sun’s inner dynamo for amplification. At first glance, this might seem to boost sunspot production, but no. When the remains of old sunspots reached the dynamo, they rode the belt through the amplification zone too hastily for full re-animation. Sunspot production was stunted.
Later, in the 2000s, according to the model, the Conveyor Belt slowed down again, allowing magnetic fields to spend more time in the amplification zone, but the damage was already done. New sunspots were in short supply. Adding insult to injury, the slow moving belt did little to assist re-animated sunspots on their journey back to the surface, delaying the onset of Solar Cycle 24.
“The stage was set for the deepest solar minimum in a century,” says co-author Petrus Martens of the Montana State University Department of Physics.
OK. Plenty of belief. Does it have predictive power?
Colleagues and supporters of the team are calling the new model a significant advance.
“Understanding and predicting solar minimum is something we’ve never been able to do before—and it turns out to be very important,” says Lika Guhathakurta of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington, DC.
OK. Colleagues think its wonderful. But…
Nandi notes that their new computer model explained not only the absence of sunspots but also the sun’s weakened magnetic field in 08-09. “It’s confirmation that we’re on the right track.”
I’m pleased for you. Now about the future…
Next step: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can measure the motions of the sun’s conveyor belt—not just on the surface but deep inside, too. The technique is called helioseismology; it reveals the sun’s interior in much the same way that an ultrasound works on a pregnant woman. By plugging SDO’s high-quality data into the computer model, the researchers might be able to predict how future solar minima will unfold. SDO is just getting started, however, so forecasts will have to wait.
Indeed, much work remains to be done, but, says Guhathakurta, “finally, we may be cracking the mystery of the spotless sun.”
I worry about this sort of science (or at least, this sort of scientific publishing). They claim they can explain the past, but they have no idea if their model has any predictive power.
Before the last solar minimum there were plenty of different models that all explained the past but had zero predictive power about the solar minimum. Has this salutary experience been forgotten already at NASA? I’m sure David Hathaway could tell them all about it.
I was going to title this post “NASA suffers from premature exultation” but I thought better of it. This team could be right, but frankly there’s no way to know unless they can make a reasonable forecast.
All of which puts all of this at slightly above the level of reading tea-leaves. But its in Nature, so it’s like hitting a home run in the World Series of science. That’s the important part, clearly.
00votes
Article Rating
169 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
etudiant
March 3, 2011 2:25 pm
While I’ve not read the full paper, which is hidden behind the Nature paywall, even the press summary shows that the headline is quite false.
The study postulates a cyclical process that amplifies magnetic instabilities that manifest themselves as sunspots. Nothing explains the drivers for these or why the cycle speeds up or slows down.
That leaves the source of the fluctuations open and provides no new insights into the future trends in either sun spots or broader solar activity.
Aside from that, it seemed an interesting paper on solar flows. The idea of rivers of plasma many times wider than the earth diving deep into the sun is certainly striking.
DirkH
March 3, 2011 2:25 pm
Sounds like yet more epicycles.
Engineer Bob
March 3, 2011 2:43 pm
The Earth-pointing satellite provide various measurement of our weather system, not prediction.
With this technique, it takes a lot of computation to get anywhere beyond the visible surface. The unknowns are probably high, just to make the “observation” of deep behavior. Having the accuracy (and experience) to extrapolate further should be considered highly speculative, IMHO.
Expecting more predictive power from the first look into the Sun’s deep currents seems premature to me. Why wouldn’t it take as long to develop predictive power on the Sun as it did on Earth? We still can’t predict weather in useful detail anywhere close to a month in the future.
I applaud this work into discovering the dynamics of the sun. I don’t expect final answers the first day. Why not cut these authors some slack?
The Map (model) is Not The Territory (the sun).
“Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” – Alfred Korzybski
As Richard Feynman said, [paraphrasing] when you have too many explanations that are alleged to be the answer that’s a very good hint that you’ve not understood the thing you’re studying and it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Soothsaying digital solar entrails with software models. At least there is no doomsday in their less than stellar explanations of the past. Oh wait, 2012 is just around the corner and neutrinos still have time to start interacting more strongly with the Earth heating up The Core. [:)] Ah, love it, two movie references in that sentence [:)].
This model cannot explain the past few hundred years. There is no mechanism for a hundred years without sunspots and it also implies that the 11 yr cycle fluctuates based on the conveyor belt speed. delaying the onset of Solar Cycle 24.
Since that time variation in onset is not seen, they have no real basis. The Sun does appear to have larger cycles on top of the 22 yr cycle as the peaks in the past have steadily changed over time. Since the current greater cycle peaked in 1959-1960 and each cycle has been weaker (generally) it should be no surprise that the current one is weaker still.
Their mechanism for altering current speeds does little to explain why, much less does it explain why the current fluctuates.
John Kehr
Theo Goodwin
March 3, 2011 2:53 pm
Engineer Bob says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“I applaud this work into discovering the dynamics of the sun. I don’t expect final answers the first day. Why not cut these authors some slack?”
Because of the hubris in their statements. And because those statements are made to support a political agenda. Warmista have the power to return to science at any time. The choice is theirs.
mojo
March 3, 2011 2:56 pm
You mean there aren’t a couple of small black holes orbiting each other down there after all?
Well, so much for THAT theory…
tallbloke
March 3, 2011 2:59 pm
vukcevic says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Leif Svalgaard says: March 3, 2011 at 12:46 pm
……………….
Hey Doc
We expect an erudite and in depth analysis. Little snippets, however entertaining or sarcastic can not do the justice.
Heh, Leif is doing the wise thing as a professional solar physicist and saying as little as possible at the moment. Which of course leaves room for us amateurs to throw our hats into the ring. No doubt he’ll be along to stomp on them as a way of drawing attention away from the fact that the pro teams disagree and don’t have a scooby’s at the moment.
Anyway, here’s some cannon fodder for him. http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/tallbloke-and-tim-channon-a-cycles-analysis-approach-to-predicting-solar-activity/
The predictive power of the models is what I find so frustrating. Models that continually adjust themselves to past history, but have no predictive capabilities are little better than Freudian theories of psychoanalysis, namely:
1. Everything is “consistent” with the theory
2. Anything unexpected can always be explained by the theory in a consistent way after it has occurred.
3. Some descriptions of what can be explained are like “cold readings”, they can fit virtually any outcome (floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice melting, land 6 feet deep in snowstorms and blizzards, etc etc.). Take this from Australia:
In the future, Queensland will experience longer and hotter summers, less rainfall, more evaporation, increased severe storm and cyclone activity.
and later in the same article
an increase in cyclone intensity, with maximum wind speeds up by 5–10 per cent by 2050 and rainfall associated with these events up by 20–30 per cent 4.
Does that mean less rainfall, or more rainfall? As far as I can see, it covers both drought conditions and flooding. That’s just like a cold reading by a magician.
Any alternative explanation is always wrong.
Do climate scientists believe that, like weather forecasters, that we will notice less when they get it wrong if they tell us weather events we have already seen happening? At least weather forecasts are solid enough to be wrong, although we’ve had slippery language creeping in – “occasional showers, perhaps persistent at times”, or the best one “wintry showers” – covers rain, sleet, hail, and snow all in one.
Finding any prediction is like trying to staple jelly.
Tom T
March 3, 2011 3:09 pm
“Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”
Figures.
Craig Goodrich
March 3, 2011 3:10 pm
I’d be interested in Dr. Svalgaard’s views on this. There does seem to be a logical inconsistency in the text (as pointed out by several commenters) that on the one hand when the interior current speeded up, it passed the active area so fast that it didn’t pick up enough steam to do much, but on the other hand when the current slowed, it was … running too slow for the current to pick up enough steam? Or have I misunderstood something?
ObeliskToucher
March 3, 2011 3:10 pm
“According to our model, the trouble with sunspots actually began in back in the late 1990s during the upswing of Solar Cycle 23,” says co-author Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “At that time, the conveyor belt sped up.”
Q: Why did it speed up?
A: …. crickets chirping ….
tallbloke says: March 3, 2011 at 2:59 pm
…………….
Hi Rog
Sunspot and climate predictions, heaps of fun.
Haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I nicked my older brother’s toy aeroplane.
Adam Gallon
March 3, 2011 3:15 pm
The comment left on the Nature website.
“2011-03-02 02:56 AM
Report this comment #18493
David Hathaway said:
This theoretical model is diametrically opposed to the observations of Hathaway & Rightmire (2010) Science, 327, 1350. Our observations represent the most accurate and complete measurements of the meridional flow over solar cycle 23 and indicate that the flow was slow at the start of the cycle and fast at the end; the opposite of what this theoretical model requires. The authors’ comments on our observations can be found only in the supplemental information; hidden from view for most readers. They suggest that the variations we measure are irrelevant because they only represent the near surface layers. Yet, their entire meridional circulation system is built on the flow observed in these very same layers. If they want to match the speed of the flow at the base of the convection zone to the equatorward drift of the sunspot latitude zones by using the surface layer flow speed then they should agree that the variations in the surface flow speed represent the variations in the deeper layers as well. Unfortunately for their model, to accept this means their model is in conflict with the observations.”
Crash & burn?
“Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”
How many others stopped reading here… and so much of what I do depends on creating accurate computer models… I am so ashamed of the industry and that charlatans that occupy it … I feel that over 40 years is as nothing… honesty? integrity? check in the dictionary of you want to learn about them — do not watch climate scientists and computer modelers…
I am turning in my propeller beanie. It is no longer a badge of honor. I am shredding my pocket protector. I am grinding up my slide rules. I’m a-gonna drive our D8 Cat over all my scientific calculators. I am smashing the living room busts of Tesla and Newton… we are forsaken! alas, alack aday!
We are at the cross-roads at midnight… our fate awaits!
Ranger Rick
March 3, 2011 3:34 pm
Are they using the same computer they use to model the AGW theory? I sure hope so. Then we can all believe it as gospel because the computer says we should. All we need now is a consensus! Any takers?
John A
March 3, 2011 3:40 pm
Good for David Hathaway. Doing what the peer reviewers failed to do…reconcile the theory with the evidence.
When I wrote the post I failed to mention the tenses used, unconditional at the start, more and more conditional by the end. CYA in other words.
Theo Goodwin
March 3, 2011 3:46 pm
Writing without hubris, the authors of the paper should have said that they have created a computer simulation for all three “aspects of this process–the magnetic dynamo, the conveyor belt, and the buoyant evolution of sunspot magnetic fields.” They should have continued that this very limited simulation helps them as they speculate about the causes of the phenomena. In addition, they should have said that their simulation is not yet compatible with the best observational work on sun spots, namely, that by Hathaway & Rightmire (2010) Science, 327, 1350.
For the uninformed general public, they should have said that this simulation should not be understood as being a physical theory or as implying actual observations of sun spot behavior.
But NO; they have to suggest that they have the TRUTH.
Gaylon
March 3, 2011 3:47 pm
Engineer Bob says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“…Why not cut these authors some slack?”
Cuz Bob, we’ve been down this road before. You rightly suggest that, “Having the accuracy (and experience) to extrapolate further should be considered highly speculative, IMHO”, but did you read anything that sounded ‘speculative in the article? These guys are opperating according to their standard MO: ‘we have a computer model, and although we still have much work to do, we may be starting to crack the mystery of the spotless sun’ (ok, that sounds slightly speculative but rings of an obligatory closing. IMO).
Next, as hinted by another poster above, we will probably hear that after calibrating this model with another model’s results and filtering through two other computer models after 25,000 runs over two years that the Solar influence on Earth’s climate is negligible and (sarc/on)- not to worry about the 3 feet of snow in April because that’s what “global climate disruption” is all about. We’ve been predicting this icy global warming since the ’80’s -(sarc/off).
We’re just trying to nip this show of shoddy prose and propaganda in the bud, not the actual science. Science is good, models could be good tools if real scientists were administrating them instead of propagandists. We just wish these guys would get on the bandwagon (the real-science bandwagon).
You hit the nail right on the head, think these guys are on that same tack? I would answer in the negative. 🙂
Juice
March 3, 2011 3:48 pm
I worry about this sort of science (or at least, this sort of scientific publishing). They claim they can explain the past, but they have no idea if their model has any predictive power.
What the hell? Give it some time, jeez. They just now developed the model. It’ll take a few years to see if the model can predict the occurrence and number of sunspots and the like.
Gaylon
March 3, 2011 3:53 pm
WillR says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:28 pm
“I am grinding up my slide rules.”
WillR, NNNNNOOOOOOOOO DON’T DO IT MAN!!!
Send them to me, can’t find the things anywhere. :0)
d
March 3, 2011 3:56 pm
Its ironic this article shows up just at the time the sun spot and F10.7 numbers are shooting way up. Funny if NASA will now have to explain why the sunspots are back!!
Doug Deal
March 3, 2011 4:10 pm
I also have a “computer model” that predicts past lottery numbers to 100% accuracy. I wonder if I can get Federally funded?
In investing, there is a well known warning. “Past performance is no guarentee of future success.” Perhaps it’s time to bring that wisdom to science in the dangers of retrocasting.
EthicallyCivil
March 3, 2011 4:11 pm
Advances in modelling are interesting, but until predictive power is demonstrated, one cannot call it anything other than an interesting simulation, or mathematical model somewhat like String Theory. Hopefully the model will make some falsifiable predictions that we can test against the future. Then we might have something interesting.
I did CFD (computational fluid dynamics) early in my career, and until we could get good correlation with the wind tunnel data, designers wouldn’t touch it.
While I’ve not read the full paper, which is hidden behind the Nature paywall, even the press summary shows that the headline is quite false.
The study postulates a cyclical process that amplifies magnetic instabilities that manifest themselves as sunspots. Nothing explains the drivers for these or why the cycle speeds up or slows down.
That leaves the source of the fluctuations open and provides no new insights into the future trends in either sun spots or broader solar activity.
Aside from that, it seemed an interesting paper on solar flows. The idea of rivers of plasma many times wider than the earth diving deep into the sun is certainly striking.
Sounds like yet more epicycles.
The Earth-pointing satellite provide various measurement of our weather system, not prediction.
With this technique, it takes a lot of computation to get anywhere beyond the visible surface. The unknowns are probably high, just to make the “observation” of deep behavior. Having the accuracy (and experience) to extrapolate further should be considered highly speculative, IMHO.
Expecting more predictive power from the first look into the Sun’s deep currents seems premature to me. Why wouldn’t it take as long to develop predictive power on the Sun as it did on Earth? We still can’t predict weather in useful detail anywhere close to a month in the future.
I applaud this work into discovering the dynamics of the sun. I don’t expect final answers the first day. Why not cut these authors some slack?
The Map (model) is Not The Territory (the sun).
“Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” – Alfred Korzybski
As Richard Feynman said, [paraphrasing] when you have too many explanations that are alleged to be the answer that’s a very good hint that you’ve not understood the thing you’re studying and it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Soothsaying digital solar entrails with software models. At least there is no doomsday in their less than stellar explanations of the past. Oh wait, 2012 is just around the corner and neutrinos still have time to start interacting more strongly with the Earth heating up The Core. [:)] Ah, love it, two movie references in that sentence [:)].
Yep, Nature -the journal- is full of these…
This model cannot explain the past few hundred years. There is no mechanism for a hundred years without sunspots and it also implies that the 11 yr cycle fluctuates based on the conveyor belt speed.
delaying the onset of Solar Cycle 24.
Since that time variation in onset is not seen, they have no real basis. The Sun does appear to have larger cycles on top of the 22 yr cycle as the peaks in the past have steadily changed over time. Since the current greater cycle peaked in 1959-1960 and each cycle has been weaker (generally) it should be no surprise that the current one is weaker still.
Their mechanism for altering current speeds does little to explain why, much less does it explain why the current fluctuates.
John Kehr
Engineer Bob says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“I applaud this work into discovering the dynamics of the sun. I don’t expect final answers the first day. Why not cut these authors some slack?”
Because of the hubris in their statements. And because those statements are made to support a political agenda. Warmista have the power to return to science at any time. The choice is theirs.
You mean there aren’t a couple of small black holes orbiting each other down there after all?
Well, so much for THAT theory…
vukcevic says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Leif Svalgaard says: March 3, 2011 at 12:46 pm
……………….
Hey Doc
We expect an erudite and in depth analysis. Little snippets, however entertaining or sarcastic can not do the justice.
Heh, Leif is doing the wise thing as a professional solar physicist and saying as little as possible at the moment. Which of course leaves room for us amateurs to throw our hats into the ring. No doubt he’ll be along to stomp on them as a way of drawing attention away from the fact that the pro teams disagree and don’t have a scooby’s at the moment.
Anyway, here’s some cannon fodder for him.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/tallbloke-and-tim-channon-a-cycles-analysis-approach-to-predicting-solar-activity/
The predictive power of the models is what I find so frustrating. Models that continually adjust themselves to past history, but have no predictive capabilities are little better than Freudian theories of psychoanalysis, namely:
1. Everything is “consistent” with the theory
2. Anything unexpected can always be explained by the theory in a consistent way after it has occurred.
3. Some descriptions of what can be explained are like “cold readings”, they can fit virtually any outcome (floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice melting, land 6 feet deep in snowstorms and blizzards, etc etc.). Take this from Australia:
In the future, Queensland will experience longer and hotter summers, less rainfall, more evaporation, increased severe storm and cyclone activity.
and later in the same article
an increase in cyclone intensity, with maximum wind speeds up by 5–10 per cent by 2050 and rainfall associated with these events up by 20–30 per cent 4.
Does that mean less rainfall, or more rainfall? As far as I can see, it covers both drought conditions and flooding. That’s just like a cold reading by a magician.
Any alternative explanation is always wrong.
Do climate scientists believe that, like weather forecasters, that we will notice less when they get it wrong if they tell us weather events we have already seen happening? At least weather forecasts are solid enough to be wrong, although we’ve had slippery language creeping in – “occasional showers, perhaps persistent at times”, or the best one “wintry showers” – covers rain, sleet, hail, and snow all in one.
Finding any prediction is like trying to staple jelly.
“Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”
Figures.
I’d be interested in Dr. Svalgaard’s views on this. There does seem to be a logical inconsistency in the text (as pointed out by several commenters) that on the one hand when the interior current speeded up, it passed the active area so fast that it didn’t pick up enough steam to do much, but on the other hand when the current slowed, it was … running too slow for the current to pick up enough steam? Or have I misunderstood something?
“According to our model, the trouble with sunspots actually began in back in the late 1990s during the upswing of Solar Cycle 23,” says co-author Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “At that time, the conveyor belt sped up.”
Q: Why did it speed up?
A: …. crickets chirping ….
tallbloke says: March 3, 2011 at 2:59 pm
…………….
Hi Rog
Sunspot and climate predictions, heaps of fun.
Haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I nicked my older brother’s toy aeroplane.
The comment left on the Nature website.
“2011-03-02 02:56 AM
Report this comment #18493
David Hathaway said:
This theoretical model is diametrically opposed to the observations of Hathaway & Rightmire (2010) Science, 327, 1350. Our observations represent the most accurate and complete measurements of the meridional flow over solar cycle 23 and indicate that the flow was slow at the start of the cycle and fast at the end; the opposite of what this theoretical model requires. The authors’ comments on our observations can be found only in the supplemental information; hidden from view for most readers. They suggest that the variations we measure are irrelevant because they only represent the near surface layers. Yet, their entire meridional circulation system is built on the flow observed in these very same layers. If they want to match the speed of the flow at the base of the convection zone to the equatorward drift of the sunspot latitude zones by using the surface layer flow speed then they should agree that the variations in the surface flow speed represent the variations in the deeper layers as well. Unfortunately for their model, to accept this means their model is in conflict with the observations.”
Crash & burn?
“Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”
How many others stopped reading here… and so much of what I do depends on creating accurate computer models… I am so ashamed of the industry and that charlatans that occupy it … I feel that over 40 years is as nothing… honesty? integrity? check in the dictionary of you want to learn about them — do not watch climate scientists and computer modelers…
I am turning in my propeller beanie. It is no longer a badge of honor. I am shredding my pocket protector. I am grinding up my slide rules. I’m a-gonna drive our D8 Cat over all my scientific calculators. I am smashing the living room busts of Tesla and Newton… we are forsaken! alas, alack aday!
We are at the cross-roads at midnight… our fate awaits!
Are they using the same computer they use to model the AGW theory? I sure hope so. Then we can all believe it as gospel because the computer says we should. All we need now is a consensus! Any takers?
Good for David Hathaway. Doing what the peer reviewers failed to do…reconcile the theory with the evidence.
When I wrote the post I failed to mention the tenses used, unconditional at the start, more and more conditional by the end. CYA in other words.
Writing without hubris, the authors of the paper should have said that they have created a computer simulation for all three “aspects of this process–the magnetic dynamo, the conveyor belt, and the buoyant evolution of sunspot magnetic fields.” They should have continued that this very limited simulation helps them as they speculate about the causes of the phenomena. In addition, they should have said that their simulation is not yet compatible with the best observational work on sun spots, namely, that by Hathaway & Rightmire (2010) Science, 327, 1350.
For the uninformed general public, they should have said that this simulation should not be understood as being a physical theory or as implying actual observations of sun spot behavior.
But NO; they have to suggest that they have the TRUTH.
Engineer Bob says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“…Why not cut these authors some slack?”
Cuz Bob, we’ve been down this road before. You rightly suggest that, “Having the accuracy (and experience) to extrapolate further should be considered highly speculative, IMHO”, but did you read anything that sounded ‘speculative in the article? These guys are opperating according to their standard MO: ‘we have a computer model, and although we still have much work to do, we may be starting to crack the mystery of the spotless sun’ (ok, that sounds slightly speculative but rings of an obligatory closing. IMO).
Next, as hinted by another poster above, we will probably hear that after calibrating this model with another model’s results and filtering through two other computer models after 25,000 runs over two years that the Solar influence on Earth’s climate is negligible and (sarc/on)- not to worry about the 3 feet of snow in April because that’s what “global climate disruption” is all about. We’ve been predicting this icy global warming since the ’80’s -(sarc/off).
We’re just trying to nip this show of shoddy prose and propaganda in the bud, not the actual science. Science is good, models could be good tools if real scientists were administrating them instead of propagandists. We just wish these guys would get on the bandwagon (the real-science bandwagon).
You hit the nail right on the head, think these guys are on that same tack? I would answer in the negative. 🙂
What the hell? Give it some time, jeez. They just now developed the model. It’ll take a few years to see if the model can predict the occurrence and number of sunspots and the like.
WillR says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:28 pm
“I am grinding up my slide rules.”
WillR, NNNNNOOOOOOOOO DON’T DO IT MAN!!!
Send them to me, can’t find the things anywhere. :0)
Its ironic this article shows up just at the time the sun spot and F10.7 numbers are shooting way up. Funny if NASA will now have to explain why the sunspots are back!!
I also have a “computer model” that predicts past lottery numbers to 100% accuracy. I wonder if I can get Federally funded?
In investing, there is a well known warning. “Past performance is no guarentee of future success.” Perhaps it’s time to bring that wisdom to science in the dangers of retrocasting.
Advances in modelling are interesting, but until predictive power is demonstrated, one cannot call it anything other than an interesting simulation, or mathematical model somewhat like String Theory. Hopefully the model will make some falsifiable predictions that we can test against the future. Then we might have something interesting.
I did CFD (computational fluid dynamics) early in my career, and until we could get good correlation with the wind tunnel data, designers wouldn’t touch it.