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.
Do you think I could work at NASA? I enjoy thinking stuff up and I’m excellent at gathering data, I could collect Tera-quads of data and sit about thinking up thousands of theory’s a year and file them on a to-be proven pile, that would take thousands more people hundreds of years to make any sense of them.
I’d especially like to work in NASA’s new “Theory On Demand Department” (TODD) or the “Labyrinth Of Information Department” (LOID) or one of the similar departments of experts that have been appearing all over the planet.
It’s all a farce!!
If they don’t understand the basics… (I’ll let Albert Einstein Explain the rest).
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
“Information is not knowledge.”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it!”
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.”
“By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.”
“The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to insure the unhindered development of the individual.”
“Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions.”
“The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.” (I believe he would have said “The hardest thing to understand in the world is the Carbon Tax” had he been alive today)
“I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work, second, stick-to-ittiveness, third, common sense.”
“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.”
“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
“I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.”
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
J Gary Fox
March 3, 2011 4:28 pm
Place me in the “Skeptical” cohort.
I’ve been following “The Sunspots” since the beginning of Cycle 24.
At that time the speed up of the belt was confidently predicted to INCREASE sunspots.
NASA reported in 2006 that:
“According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future. A slow belt means lower solar activity; a fast belt means stronger activity. The reasons for this are explained in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.” http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/
So now they have the belt speed bracketed … Fast or Slow means more sunspots
I’ll put this on my calendar to check after Cycle 25.
Perhaps they’ll have the “just right” speed theory … or something new and proven from their “computer simulations”.
Three statements that should make you wary:
“The check is in the mail.”
“Of course, I’ll respect you in the morning.”
“Our computer simulation proves …. “
Robert of Ottawa
March 3, 2011 4:29 pm
There seems to be a virus in science of computer modellers looking at data to prove their models are correct. I really do think people should put the computer models away for a while and watch, record and think about what they need to know before writing computer programs.
But it’s so much easier to write computer programs rather than actually, like, you know, do hard stuff like collect observational data and all that figuring involved.
Theo Goodwin
March 3, 2011 4:32 pm
TheTempestSpark quotes Einstein:
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
When he was hired at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies in the Fifties, he was asked for his salary requirements. He went home and calculated that he and his wife would need $4000/year. They set his salary at $30,000/year.
Anything is possible
March 3, 2011 4:47 pm
d says:
March 3, 2011 at 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!!
_____________________________________________________________
“Shooting way up” is a relative term here. 18 months to 2 years before the last Solar maximum (which wasn’t an especially strong cycle in the great scheme of things), the F10.7 number was averaging about 180. Even with it perking up in the last couple of weeks, it is still only running at about 110, way below what we have become used to.
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:15 pm Seems there might be more than one way to read the SDO data tealeaves.
Their model is not based on any SDO data. Is this a final throw of the dice for the deep dynamo-hummers?
Bad science dies slowly.
vukcevic says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:17 pm We expect an erudite and in depth analysis.
You have gotten that many a time on this blog, but are, unfortunately, learning-resistant.
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:59 pm Heh, Leif is doing the wise thing as a professional solar physicist and saying as little as possible at the moment.
Not at all, my views are all over the place.
Tom T says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:09 pm Or have I misunderstood something?
We don’t know what the deeper circulation is at this moment. So, can’t really model anything but our assumptions.
John A says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:40 pm Good for David Hathaway. Doing what the peer reviewers failed to do…reconcile the theory with the evidence.
Indeed
Theo Goodwin says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:46 pm But NO; they have to suggest that they have the TRUTH.
The PR-machine of NASA bears part of the blame.
Gaylon says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:47 pm “The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Indeed
ShaneCMuir
March 3, 2011 4:53 pm
Malaga View says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:16 pm
More bull than Buzz Lightyear:
computer model… magnetic dynamo… conveyor belt… magnetic fields… plasma currents… meridional flows… inner dynamo… amplification zone… ultrasound… buoyant evolution… cosmic rays… space junk… helioseismology…
More moves than John Travolta:
stage was set… slow moving… violent flaring… cool and collapse… plunge inward… pop up again… pull them down… bob up… unfold.. wait.. grind on… works on a pregnant woman…
More scary than Vincent Price:
sunspot corpses… full re-animation… decaying… strange things happen… held at bay… cooled and collapsed… stunted… the remains… rapidly dragged… cracking… dangerous place
To infinitity and beyond belief
Great analysis Malga!
The writers at Nasa obviously went to the same school as our politian’s writers do.
The content, science, or truth of the issue being discussed is relatively un-important.
These articles and speeches have other motives.
They all have words designed to reach us on an emotional level.
So this Nasa article wasn’t really created for Scientists.. or Award winning Science Blogs for that matter.
Its designed for the general population.
Just look at the words Malga has singled out.
These words were not chosen by accident.
The general poulation are supposed to react to this article by:
* Believing there is a problem.
* Re-acting to the problem with Fear.
* Expecting the Government to find a solution.
Its called Hegalian Dialectic.
It is the same method Governments have used to control their people for centuries.
Sounds like an old Popular Mechanics article, fluff and hype does sell magazines you know…
Now did they attempt to run this “new” theory against the last 10 solar cycles? What were the results? How much “tuning” did they have to do? OR better yet, is the claim for not verifying the performance of the new theory model based on a lack of data?
Bill Jamison
March 3, 2011 6:53 pm
Okay so this new model is great at hindcasting but we have no idea of it’s predictive power and accuracy. Sounds just like the GCMs.
paulsnz
March 3, 2011 7:04 pm
Now to link the Sun to Man made CO2..
davidmhoffer
March 3, 2011 7:20 pm
I’ve been building my own model and I think I’ve hit on something interesting. I kept on getting the same image from the modelling software showing no sun spots. then I had an epiphany. Swung the image in 3 dimensions by 180 degrees, and there they were. Clustered on the other side of the sun where we can’t see them.
I know some people will be skeptical of computer model, so as proof, I ran it 28,465 times in succession and got the exact same answer every time. 9 decimal places no less. How much more proof do you need? If I run it another 1,000 times, do you think that will change anything? Of course not!
Next I’m modeling the cause. I’ve found a strong correlation between global warming and farside sunspot migration. I didn’t have access to any actual global warming data, its too hard to gather and collate, but I found another mechanism that is more effective. I ran every IPCC climate model against my sunspot model. Of the 19 IPCC climate models, 15 turned out to be worthless, they didn’t match at all. But once I discarded those, the four that were left were a close match. By applying some very sophisticated statistical techniques, I was able to weight the output of the remaining four models such that their combined results matched the sunspot model 100%
What further proof anyone could ask for that global warming is the clear driver of farside sunspot migration is beyond me.
I even got an email from one idiot asking if it was possible that the relationship was reversed. What are they teaching in science class these days? CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION! Unbelievable.
ferd berple
March 3, 2011 8:00 pm
“For the first time, Nandi’s team believes they have developed a computer model ”
BULL, they thought they had it right last time. If anyone in private industry did this sort of science their company would go bankrupt and they would be out of jobs. Fortunately for these clowns their employer can’t go bankrupt … or can it?
davidmhoffer says: (March 3, 2011 at 7:20 pm) What further proof anyone could ask for that global warming is the clear driver of farside sunspot migration is beyond me.
No further proof, David. I believe you have it staked through the heart in the very best traditions of global warming science.
David Corcoran
March 3, 2011 8:39 pm
A word to my fellow skeptics: Solar scientists aren’t part of “the team”. A few years ago the majority of solar scientists were against the idea that we’re entering a grand solar minimum, now that’s shifting. Theirs was a reasonable position… it was too early to tell.
Solar scientists don’t hide or fake data. They make real falsifiable prognostications. They deserve praise for that. Cut them some slack! None of them, not even Hathaway, pretend to know everything.
Theories prove themselves over time. The one under discussion is a new one. We’ll eventually learn whether it has any merit. There’s so much scrutiny now on the solar cycle that I can’t blame them for eschewing any predictions, but that situation needs to change. We learn fastest through repeated failures.
This is a very exciting time for solar science. We are beginning to learn how much that big ball of flame in the sky governs our future. The universe will answer this quandry for us, we just have to watch and wait.
ferd berple
March 3, 2011 8:55 pm
Trying to predict solar cycles while ignoring the planets is like trying to model an atom while ignoring the electrons. It is nonsense. There are plenty of models of solar cycles more accurate than NASA, that include the planets in their model.
Here is model for the climate and solar cycles that explains why a very small forcing can have a large effect, and why a large forcing can have little effect. It is also completely ignored by climate and solar models. http://noolmusic.com/my_video/synchronized_metronomes_-_best_video.php
Syl
March 3, 2011 11:20 pm
I wouldn’t be so hard on them. It’s a theory/hypothesis. A mechanism for testing the theory has been identified and is available. Just because we have to wait and see if the belt speed has the posited effect is no reason to mock these guys…assuming the write up actually matches the content of the paper.
It may take another century, however, before we know.
From the NASA news story:
“… The famous Maunder Minimum of the 17th century lasted 70 years and coincided with the deepest part of Europe’s Little Ice Age. Researchers are still struggling to understand the connection.”
“The only thing researchers (propagandists) are struggling with is to explain away the LIA so as to decouple changes in the suns behavior as a significant contributor to changes in the earth’s weather.”
————-
DesertYote,
The Maunder Minimum (MM) is taken as occurring between ~1645 AD to ~1715 AD. We designate it as a solar grand minimum as compared to the Wolf, Sporer and Dalton minima which were not big enough to classify as grand minima. Rather they were moderate negative fluctuations.
The Little Ice Age (LIA) is taken as occurring between ~1550 AD to ~1850 AD.
If the MM is argued as the cause of the LIA, then there is a problem due to the observation that the LIA was already into its 100th year and near its minimum temperature period before the MM was starting. It is fatal for a causation argument. Any correlation that may exist is rendered meaningless.
Now I need to look at the Dalton Minimum versus earth cooling periods to see if it has the same problem as the MM versus the LIA. I also need to look at the Wolf and Sporer Minimuns versus earth cooling periods. Has anybody already done that?
John
tallbloke
March 4, 2011 1:02 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 3, 2011 at 4:50 pm
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Seems there might be more than one way to read the SDO data tealeaves.
Their model is not based on any SDO data.
Is this a final throw of the dice for the deep dynamo-hummers?
Bad science dies slowly.
Leif. Can you point me to your research and theory on the shallow dynamo?
Thanks
Malaga View
March 4, 2011 2:17 am
ferd berple says:
There are plenty of models of solar cycles more accurate than NASA, that include the planets in their model.
Such a wonderful video… very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember… but it seems to be totally beyond the comprehension levels of NASA… so I ask myself: how can seemingly intelligent people be so dumb?… the only answer I have so far is: peer pressure… which explains everything you need to know about peer review and peer groups and peer publications
NASA – Nebulous Astronomy with Stupidity and Arrogance
Malaga View
March 4, 2011 2:50 am
ShaneCMuir says:
Its called Hegalian Dialectic.
It is the same method Governments have used to control their people for centuries.
Precisely… but with a twist of lemon…
They also need budgetary patronage from a BIG AMORPHOUS GOVERNMENT.
Now they have to scare both the people and the government.
In the old days somebody knew what they were doing…
In the new age nobody knows what they are doing.
AusieDan
March 4, 2011 3:04 am
WillR
Please do not dispair.
In the darkest night
there soon comes
A faint glimmer of light.
A new day will dawn.
Here comes – THE SUN
AusieDan
March 4, 2011 3:18 am
John Whitman
Yes – these issues should be settled down.
The problem, as I see it, is that we know very little about the climate.
In fact we don’t even know yet what we don’t know.
It’s like trying to understand genetics before we had any hints about DNA or even genes.
It’s very hard, particularly as so many people have nailed their flag to the mast.
amicus curiae
March 4, 2011 5:24 am
I admit to a fast scroll of the replies…
I dont see anyone mentioning the phrase…
the corpse of the sunspots.
whaaaat!
its a magnetic phenomenon it doesnt Have a corpse!
and the weird idea that the electrons whatever stay together as a clump to be sucked under, recharged and spat back out.
WTF?
I dont have diddly as science degrees, but to my mind this Nonsensical non provable supposition and description, is pure crap!
tallbloke says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:02 am Leif. Can you point me to your research and theory on the shallow dynamo?
I don’t really have a dog in that race. My point is that the ‘turn-around’ time for the cycles must be short [a few years only] for the polar fields to be a predictor of the next cycle [which they seem empirically to be]. Dikpati’s deep conveyor belt model has a turn-around time of some 40 years [count the dots on the right-hand figure on slide 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20(SORCE%202010).pdf ] which is much longer than half a cycle. Now, her model is controlled by ‘advection’, i.e. the magnetic field is dragged along by the plasma and does not diffuse across the flow. If you assume a much higher diffusion efficiency [BTW, we don’t KNOW what it is], the the field could reach the bottom of the convection zone [left-hand figure] in a much shorter time [say, a few years] and the correlation between polar fields and [next] cycle size would make sense, even with a deep dynamo. Alternatively a shallow dynamo [e.g. as explored by Schatten or originally proposed by Babcock and Leighton] might also explain the short turn-around. We don’t know which is correct, if any. The problem with a shallow dynamo is that the overturn time for the convection zone is only of the order of weeks or months [not many years], so what keeps the magnetic field down there long enough for the dynamo amplification to work? [we don’t know]. The deep dynamo crowd gets past that problem by placing the generation region just below the convections zone in the stable radiative interior.
Malaga View says:
March 4, 2011 at 2:17 am Such a wonderful video… very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember… but it seems to be totally beyond the comprehension levels of NASA
Every complicated question has a simple answer which is wrong. The problem with the astrological cycles is that there are no mechanisms that can explain how they work. It is like the two little boys discussing where babies come from; one has heard about sex, eggs, DNA, etc, and tries to explain that, but the other boy says: “naw, it is the stork that brings them, very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember…
Creepy
March 4, 2011 6:04 am
It’s so funny.
They can’t tell you what happens at their doorstep, but pretend to know everything about the sun en detail.
LOL
Do you think I could work at NASA? I enjoy thinking stuff up and I’m excellent at gathering data, I could collect Tera-quads of data and sit about thinking up thousands of theory’s a year and file them on a to-be proven pile, that would take thousands more people hundreds of years to make any sense of them.
I’d especially like to work in NASA’s new “Theory On Demand Department” (TODD) or the “Labyrinth Of Information Department” (LOID) or one of the similar departments of experts that have been appearing all over the planet.
It’s all a farce!!
If they don’t understand the basics… (I’ll let Albert Einstein Explain the rest).
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
“Information is not knowledge.”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it!”
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.”
“By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.”
“The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to insure the unhindered development of the individual.”
“Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions.”
“The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.” (I believe he would have said “The hardest thing to understand in the world is the Carbon Tax” had he been alive today)
“I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work, second, stick-to-ittiveness, third, common sense.”
“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.”
“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
“I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.”
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Place me in the “Skeptical” cohort.
I’ve been following “The Sunspots” since the beginning of Cycle 24.
At that time the speed up of the belt was confidently predicted to INCREASE sunspots.
NASA reported in 2006 that:
“According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future. A slow belt means lower solar activity; a fast belt means stronger activity. The reasons for this are explained in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/
So now they have the belt speed bracketed … Fast or Slow means more sunspots
I’ll put this on my calendar to check after Cycle 25.
Perhaps they’ll have the “just right” speed theory … or something new and proven from their “computer simulations”.
Three statements that should make you wary:
“The check is in the mail.”
“Of course, I’ll respect you in the morning.”
“Our computer simulation proves …. “
There seems to be a virus in science of computer modellers looking at data to prove their models are correct. I really do think people should put the computer models away for a while and watch, record and think about what they need to know before writing computer programs.
But it’s so much easier to write computer programs rather than actually, like, you know, do hard stuff like collect observational data and all that figuring involved.
TheTempestSpark quotes Einstein:
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
When he was hired at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies in the Fifties, he was asked for his salary requirements. He went home and calculated that he and his wife would need $4000/year. They set his salary at $30,000/year.
d says:
March 3, 2011 at 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!!
_____________________________________________________________
“Shooting way up” is a relative term here. 18 months to 2 years before the last Solar maximum (which wasn’t an especially strong cycle in the great scheme of things), the F10.7 number was averaging about 180. Even with it perking up in the last couple of weeks, it is still only running at about 110, way below what we have become used to.
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Seems there might be more than one way to read the SDO data tealeaves.
Their model is not based on any SDO data.
Is this a final throw of the dice for the deep dynamo-hummers?
Bad science dies slowly.
vukcevic says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:17 pm
We expect an erudite and in depth analysis.
You have gotten that many a time on this blog, but are, unfortunately, learning-resistant.
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Heh, Leif is doing the wise thing as a professional solar physicist and saying as little as possible at the moment.
Not at all, my views are all over the place.
Tom T says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Or have I misunderstood something?
We don’t know what the deeper circulation is at this moment. So, can’t really model anything but our assumptions.
John A says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Good for David Hathaway. Doing what the peer reviewers failed to do…reconcile the theory with the evidence.
Indeed
Theo Goodwin says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:46 pm
But NO; they have to suggest that they have the TRUTH.
The PR-machine of NASA bears part of the blame.
Gaylon says:
March 3, 2011 at 3:47 pm
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Indeed
Malaga View says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Great analysis Malga!
The writers at Nasa obviously went to the same school as our politian’s writers do.
The content, science, or truth of the issue being discussed is relatively un-important.
These articles and speeches have other motives.
They all have words designed to reach us on an emotional level.
So this Nasa article wasn’t really created for Scientists.. or Award winning Science Blogs for that matter.
Its designed for the general population.
Just look at the words Malga has singled out.
These words were not chosen by accident.
The general poulation are supposed to react to this article by:
* Believing there is a problem.
* Re-acting to the problem with Fear.
* Expecting the Government to find a solution.
Its called Hegalian Dialectic.
It is the same method Governments have used to control their people for centuries.
Sounds like an old Popular Mechanics article, fluff and hype does sell magazines you know…
Now did they attempt to run this “new” theory against the last 10 solar cycles? What were the results? How much “tuning” did they have to do? OR better yet, is the claim for not verifying the performance of the new theory model based on a lack of data?
Okay so this new model is great at hindcasting but we have no idea of it’s predictive power and accuracy. Sounds just like the GCMs.
Now to link the Sun to Man made CO2..
I’ve been building my own model and I think I’ve hit on something interesting. I kept on getting the same image from the modelling software showing no sun spots. then I had an epiphany. Swung the image in 3 dimensions by 180 degrees, and there they were. Clustered on the other side of the sun where we can’t see them.
I know some people will be skeptical of computer model, so as proof, I ran it 28,465 times in succession and got the exact same answer every time. 9 decimal places no less. How much more proof do you need? If I run it another 1,000 times, do you think that will change anything? Of course not!
Next I’m modeling the cause. I’ve found a strong correlation between global warming and farside sunspot migration. I didn’t have access to any actual global warming data, its too hard to gather and collate, but I found another mechanism that is more effective. I ran every IPCC climate model against my sunspot model. Of the 19 IPCC climate models, 15 turned out to be worthless, they didn’t match at all. But once I discarded those, the four that were left were a close match. By applying some very sophisticated statistical techniques, I was able to weight the output of the remaining four models such that their combined results matched the sunspot model 100%
What further proof anyone could ask for that global warming is the clear driver of farside sunspot migration is beyond me.
I even got an email from one idiot asking if it was possible that the relationship was reversed. What are they teaching in science class these days? CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION! Unbelievable.
“For the first time, Nandi’s team believes they have developed a computer model ”
BULL, they thought they had it right last time. If anyone in private industry did this sort of science their company would go bankrupt and they would be out of jobs. Fortunately for these clowns their employer can’t go bankrupt … or can it?
davidmhoffer says: (March 3, 2011 at 7:20 pm)
What further proof anyone could ask for that global warming is the clear driver of farside sunspot migration is beyond me.
No further proof, David. I believe you have it staked through the heart in the very best traditions of global warming science.
A word to my fellow skeptics: Solar scientists aren’t part of “the team”. A few years ago the majority of solar scientists were against the idea that we’re entering a grand solar minimum, now that’s shifting. Theirs was a reasonable position… it was too early to tell.
Solar scientists don’t hide or fake data. They make real falsifiable prognostications. They deserve praise for that. Cut them some slack! None of them, not even Hathaway, pretend to know everything.
Theories prove themselves over time. The one under discussion is a new one. We’ll eventually learn whether it has any merit. There’s so much scrutiny now on the solar cycle that I can’t blame them for eschewing any predictions, but that situation needs to change. We learn fastest through repeated failures.
This is a very exciting time for solar science. We are beginning to learn how much that big ball of flame in the sky governs our future. The universe will answer this quandry for us, we just have to watch and wait.
Trying to predict solar cycles while ignoring the planets is like trying to model an atom while ignoring the electrons. It is nonsense. There are plenty of models of solar cycles more accurate than NASA, that include the planets in their model.
Here is model for the climate and solar cycles that explains why a very small forcing can have a large effect, and why a large forcing can have little effect. It is also completely ignored by climate and solar models.
http://noolmusic.com/my_video/synchronized_metronomes_-_best_video.php
I wouldn’t be so hard on them. It’s a theory/hypothesis. A mechanism for testing the theory has been identified and is available. Just because we have to wait and see if the belt speed has the posited effect is no reason to mock these guys…assuming the write up actually matches the content of the paper.
It may take another century, however, before we know.
DesertYote says:
March 3, 2011 at 1:14 pm
“The only thing researchers (propagandists) are struggling with is to explain away the LIA so as to decouple changes in the suns behavior as a significant contributor to changes in the earth’s weather.”
————-
DesertYote,
The Maunder Minimum (MM) is taken as occurring between ~1645 AD to ~1715 AD. We designate it as a solar grand minimum as compared to the Wolf, Sporer and Dalton minima which were not big enough to classify as grand minima. Rather they were moderate negative fluctuations.
The Little Ice Age (LIA) is taken as occurring between ~1550 AD to ~1850 AD.
If the MM is argued as the cause of the LIA, then there is a problem due to the observation that the LIA was already into its 100th year and near its minimum temperature period before the MM was starting. It is fatal for a causation argument. Any correlation that may exist is rendered meaningless.
Now I need to look at the Dalton Minimum versus earth cooling periods to see if it has the same problem as the MM versus the LIA. I also need to look at the Wolf and Sporer Minimuns versus earth cooling periods. Has anybody already done that?
John
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 3, 2011 at 4:50 pm
tallbloke says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Seems there might be more than one way to read the SDO data tealeaves.
Their model is not based on any SDO data.
Is this a final throw of the dice for the deep dynamo-hummers?
Bad science dies slowly.
Leif. Can you point me to your research and theory on the shallow dynamo?
Thanks
ferd berple says:
There are plenty of models of solar cycles more accurate than NASA, that include the planets in their model.
Such a wonderful video… very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember… but it seems to be totally beyond the comprehension levels of NASA… so I ask myself: how can seemingly intelligent people be so dumb?… the only answer I have so far is: peer pressure… which explains everything you need to know about peer review and peer groups and peer publications
NASA – Nebulous Astronomy with Stupidity and Arrogance
ShaneCMuir says:
Its called Hegalian Dialectic.
It is the same method Governments have used to control their people for centuries.
Precisely… but with a twist of lemon…
They also need budgetary patronage from a BIG AMORPHOUS GOVERNMENT.
Now they have to scare both the people and the government.
In the old days somebody knew what they were doing…
In the new age nobody knows what they are doing.
WillR
Please do not dispair.
In the darkest night
there soon comes
A faint glimmer of light.
A new day will dawn.
Here comes – THE SUN
John Whitman
Yes – these issues should be settled down.
The problem, as I see it, is that we know very little about the climate.
In fact we don’t even know yet what we don’t know.
It’s like trying to understand genetics before we had any hints about DNA or even genes.
It’s very hard, particularly as so many people have nailed their flag to the mast.
I admit to a fast scroll of the replies…
I dont see anyone mentioning the phrase…
the corpse of the sunspots.
whaaaat!
its a magnetic phenomenon it doesnt Have a corpse!
and the weird idea that the electrons whatever stay together as a clump to be sucked under, recharged and spat back out.
WTF?
I dont have diddly as science degrees, but to my mind this Nonsensical non provable supposition and description, is pure crap!
tallbloke says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:02 am
Leif. Can you point me to your research and theory on the shallow dynamo?
I don’t really have a dog in that race. My point is that the ‘turn-around’ time for the cycles must be short [a few years only] for the polar fields to be a predictor of the next cycle [which they seem empirically to be]. Dikpati’s deep conveyor belt model has a turn-around time of some 40 years [count the dots on the right-hand figure on slide 5 of http://www.leif.org/research/Predicting%20the%20Solar%20Cycle%20(SORCE%202010).pdf ] which is much longer than half a cycle. Now, her model is controlled by ‘advection’, i.e. the magnetic field is dragged along by the plasma and does not diffuse across the flow. If you assume a much higher diffusion efficiency [BTW, we don’t KNOW what it is], the the field could reach the bottom of the convection zone [left-hand figure] in a much shorter time [say, a few years] and the correlation between polar fields and [next] cycle size would make sense, even with a deep dynamo. Alternatively a shallow dynamo [e.g. as explored by Schatten or originally proposed by Babcock and Leighton] might also explain the short turn-around. We don’t know which is correct, if any. The problem with a shallow dynamo is that the overturn time for the convection zone is only of the order of weeks or months [not many years], so what keeps the magnetic field down there long enough for the dynamo amplification to work? [we don’t know]. The deep dynamo crowd gets past that problem by placing the generation region just below the convections zone in the stable radiative interior.
Malaga View says:
March 4, 2011 at 2:17 am
Such a wonderful video… very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember… but it seems to be totally beyond the comprehension levels of NASA
Every complicated question has a simple answer which is wrong. The problem with the astrological cycles is that there are no mechanisms that can explain how they work. It is like the two little boys discussing where babies come from; one has heard about sex, eggs, DNA, etc, and tries to explain that, but the other boy says: “naw, it is the stork that brings them, very simple… very short… very to the point… very easy to remember…
It’s so funny.
They can’t tell you what happens at their doorstep, but pretend to know everything about the sun en detail.
LOL