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.
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tallbloke
March 5, 2011 12:21 am
John Whitman says:
March 4, 2011 at 9:00 pm
tallbloke/mosher/leif,
Personalization is OK when used in the context of cordiality of blog colleagues…. Be careful, style accompanies content. To me the styles of some of the vehement protagonists on WUWT are very endearing . . . . like very dear old friends. I would sorely miss them if they disappeared.
Wise words John. It would be a shame to take all the passion out of debate. The blog would be a greyer place. Forcing passionately interested people out of the debate would doubtless “improve the signal to noise ratio” as defined by one side, but runs the risk of the development of a faux consensus around theory which becomes dominant not through proof and legitimacy, but through lack of challenge.
And we’ve all seen what that leads to…
V: Btw. my polar field formula http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
is far superior solution to your 1/1000 theory. L.S.: The amount of polar flux is not theory, but is an observed quantity.
As far as I know, you have no understanding or explanation of how your formula might work. …..explanation of how above formula might work.
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
Amount of energy in the sun’s surface is so huge, that unless one of these planets plunged into the sun directly, would hardly make any difference.
It is likely to be the other way around, and I was suggesting it for some time now.
It is the change in the energy outflow (not inflow) from the sun, that makes planetary connection work!
I could forward an electric analogy, but that may not be wise, so consider this:
an ordinary magnet sitting on your desk hardly makes any difference to surrounding area (after few short microseconds after being placed there). Bring in its proximity a conductor or ferromagnetic substance than its presence will manifest itself, not only on that object, but influence of that object on the magnet itself , trough the magnetic field lines connecting two; the magnet may even physically move.
How does this translate to the solar system?
Sun radiates electro-magnetic energy in huge amounts continuously. Solar wind, flares (x-rays), coronal holes, CMEs, provide energy moving ahead towards edge of the heliosphere and not much happens.
Now bring in huge magnetosphere and what is the effect: L.S. : NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]. The solar magnetic field and the Earth’s (Jupiter and Saturn too, my insertion:)magnetic field can reconnect if their geometry is right. The reconnected field lines are then stretched down the geomagnetic tail by the solar wind. This stores magnetic energy in the tail. The tail is unstable [flaps around] and tail field lines can reconnect and ‘snap’ back towards to earth restoring the magnetic field to what it was before. That rapidly changing magnetic field induces an electric field that accelerates whatever particles are present in the tail, resulting in the charges precipitating in the ionosphere [a la Birkeland’s discharges] exciting the atoms of the air to glow as the bright aurorae. ; do remember the magnetic field is connected to the Sun all the time.
So what is happening here:
there is a ‘magnetic short circuit’ in the path, but Dr.S will maysay ‘that this can’t reflect back to the solar surface trough magnetic field lines’, of course it can: NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]
and remember the above example: you can move magnet on your table, by bringing peace of iron, through magnetic field lines connecting two.
Well, in this case the sun does not move, but its surface magnetic configuration reacts to the presence of a short circuited megnetic lines by a magnetosphere via: …the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is] , This reaction is manifested in change in the velocity of meridional flow. This is a surface, or at best, shallow effect. L.S. :Schatten’s theory is one of the explanations of the solar cycle. It is still as good as any, perhaps better. Recent work by Brandenburg et al. discuss their work “in the context of a distributed solar dynamo where active regions and sunspots might be rather shallow phenomena” arXiv:0910.1835
Is there any theoretical work that may support above outlined hypothesis reflected in the formula?
Not exactly, but there are two very important studies on meridional flow relationship to the polar fields formation from:
1. Wang , Lean , and Sheeley – Hulburt Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/577/1/L53/fulltext
2.. Solanki, Baumann, Schmitt, Schüssler – Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Germany http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2004/42/aa1024/aa1024.right.html
Their studies produce waveforms which highly correlate to the results demonstrated in my formula as you can see here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC17.htm
That is how my formula on polar fields works.
There you have it.
I posted a reply to this short exchange: V: Btw. my polar field formula http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
is far superior solution to your 1/1000 theory. . L.S.: . The amount of polar flux is not theory, but is an observed quantity. As far as I know, you have no understanding or explanation of how your formula might work.
but it got lost in the works.
Detail reply how the formula might work is here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Formula%20works.htm [reply] Rescued, TB.
tallbloke
March 5, 2011 4:53 am
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 1:36 am
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
Amount of energy in the sun’s surface is so huge, that unless one of these planets plunged into the sun directly, would hardly make any difference.
You have misunderstood the mechanisms proposed by these people.
If I use 5N of force to press down the accelerator in my car, is that supplying the power required to make the car accelerate from 20mph to 40mph?
No.
The fuel and air mixture being compressed and ignited in the engine supplies the power to do that. The force on the accelerator modulates the amount of fuel fed to the engine.
In a similar way, the Wolff-Patrone mechanism models the modulation of the release of energy supplied by the sun’s nuclear furnace. The Sun supples the power, the planets trigger the timing of the release of that power to the solar surface.
A better example is the James Watt planetary governor on a steam engine. The pressure in the steam chest builds up as the fire burns and heats the water. The planetary governor spins faster as the engine picks up speed, and throws out its arms further, closing the valve which controls the amount of steam going to the cylinder barrel. The engine slows down, and the governor spins slower, allowing the arms to fall inwards again, opening the valve more. All cybernetic control loops ‘hunt’ around the value where the system is in balance. Perfect balance is never achieved because variables are always… variable.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 12:08 am Hi Leif, I can see what you are driving at here, but if you think you have the right to restrict the discussion of the Sun and its changing activity to one version of the Babcock-Leighton theory or another and define other hypotheses as ‘unscientific’
This has nothing to do with ‘right’, but with whether the science is sound. there is legitimate discussion to be had regarding the possible consequences of their findings.
They have put into the literature some correlations [which are not all that great]. They have not proposed a viable mechanism. The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy
This is not a mechanism merely a supposition of correlation, because they have not explained how the coupling might happen. In my opinion, it’s about time the solar science community spent a comparatively small amount of money funding research into working out how the solar inertial motion is affecting those flow rates, alongside their efforts to successfully model the magnetic fields and sunspot production.
The solar science community spends time on what they think will work, so the lack of interest is indicative of their general opinion of planetary influences. Let’s all do the science together
By all means, but let’s see some science first from the people ‘in the know’ [as they describe themselves].
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 1:36 am Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong. there is a ‘magnetic short circuit’ in the path, but Dr.S will maysay ‘that this can’t reflect back to the solar surface trough magnetic field lines’, of course it can: NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]
Actually I showed that long ago its surface magnetic configuration reacts to the presence of a short circuited magnetic lines by a magnetosphere
This is not science, magnetic lines do not short-circuit. The solar wind is 11 times supersonic and magnetic effects cannot move upstream, and even if they could, there is not enough energy to have any effect [contrary to your talk about ‘huge’ magnetosphere, Jupiter’s magnetosphere is tiny seen from the Sun].
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 4:53 am The Wolff-Patrone mechanism models the modulation of the release of energy supplied by the sun’s nuclear furnace. The Sun supples the power, the planets trigger the timing of the release of that power to the solar surface.
They have not described or explained what makes the modulation. They has to be a coupling. IIRC, they said that IF an mechanism could be found, THEN that could explain the correlation with their new parameter. They did not supply a mechanism.
The problem with the ‘trigger’ hypothesis [and Vuk’s too] is the sun’s magnetic cycle. What drives that? It is clear that even without planets there would still be sunspots and solar activity cycles and magnetic reversals. So, the planets do not generate solar activity. Scientists are usually averse to introduce unknown mechanisms when they are not needed in the first place. The notion of the Sun’s ‘nuclear furnace’ is a bit off the mark. The energy comes out of the Sun’s rotation which is slowed in the process. Young stars rotate faster than the Sun, as they age, stellar activity slows down the rotation.
We have been all over all of the arguments many times before. Little ‘progress’ is possible when the mechanisms proposed are ‘not even wrong’ or unnecessary. To do the science you need to know the science and that is where people on this blog fall short. I remember Vuk claiming in the beginning that the magnetic effects would propagate at the speed of light [which they would for his iron filings example]. There were also the Angular Momentum crowd violating the laws of physics, and on and on.
There are stars with magnetic cycles and planets much closer to the star than the Sun’s [so presumably their effects should be much stronger]. It has been proposed to look for the planetary periods in the cycles for these stars. Nothing has been found yet.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 5:50 am There are stars with magnetic cycles and planets much closer to the star than the Sun’s [so presumably their effects should be much stronger]. It has been proposed to look for the planetary periods in the cycles for these stars. Nothing has been found yet.
E.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4515v1
“We do not detect enhancement in the activity of the star that may be related to the conjunction of the planet.”
More data, of course, is needed [as always, when things don’t fit].
geo
March 5, 2011 7:47 am
Well, good luck to them. I hope they’re on to something. Right now I’m not sure it isn’t functionally equivalent to “Sun God was sleeping”, just a different meme to frame it.
Pascvaks
March 5, 2011 7:52 am
Ref – Leif Svalgaard says:
March 4, 2011 at 12:52 pm
steven mosher says:
March 4, 2011 at 12:28 pm
“what exactly is the POINT of personalizing this by trying to figure out whether Dr. S is pleased or not?”
It is clearly easier [and somewhat demeaning of the perpetrators] to engage in personal attacks than in the science. Better filtering of such is one way you could improve WUWT.
_________
I don’t think it’s possible to really tweek WUWT much more than it is currently managed/monitored without changing it and turning it into something very different than it is. The “Best Science Blog Award” speaks to how well it’s currently operating. But… Anthony & Co. might consider something along these lines: A Special Debate Blog Item for “Select” Commenters Only (maybe just 2 –debates get confusing if there’s more than 2 people talking about something; the rest of us could ‘read along’ but not ‘participate’ with tomatoes and rotten fruit). Well, it might be worth a shot. Anyway, $.02 from the peanut gallery.
Dr. Svalgaard
Let’s look at this a bit less emotionally.
Solar activity is a complex problem. Sunspot counting methods over the centuries may or may not be representative, and there are attempts to consolidate it for better or worse.
But also we have nearly 50 years of reliable or very reliable actual instrumental measurements of the polar field. Specifically the results for period 1975 to present, since Dr. Svalgaard and colleagues initiated the WSO measurements, are beyond any doubt or question.
Results are published and widely available.
Some 8 years ago I devised and later published a formula in Jan 2004. Final version (with minor alteration; 1941 was substituted with 1941-3, to represent the polar field cycle’s advance in relation to the following sunspot cycle is here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
This simple formula tracks accurately the published results of both solar observatories.
So, we have a simple solution to a complex problem, which matches reality to the highest degree of Rsq = 0.935, for any event in the solar science.
Those are the facts.
What is mechanism?
We can all speculate, but it may be a bit too greedy of me, to come up with the mechanism as well as the formula.
F=gM1M2/d^2 has been around for centuries, and do we know what is the mechanism: graviton, gravity wave, warped space; maybe?
If you whish to look for mechanism than you have to find one with an agreement, with the actual physical event, equal or in excess of R^2 > = 0.935.
Is there one? Definitely not! Not even a mile close.
So, we have here:
a) Complex problem
b) Simple numerical solution based on accurate astronomical constants.
c) Highest degree of agreement with the actual measurements obtained.
But what about mechanism?
As Dr. Svalgaard said: If correlation is really good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism.
One might say it is ‘teflon coated’ formula, as tough as a nanocrystalline diamond.
Well, I think that’s good enough for time being.
tallbloke
March 5, 2011 9:10 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 5:50 am
They have put into the literature some correlations [which are not all that great]. They have not proposed a viable mechanism.
Incorrect. They *have* proposed a viable mechanism. The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
This is not a mechanism merely a supposition of correlation, because they have not explained how the coupling might happen.
Incorrect again. They have not only explained how it might happen, but modeled the forces involved. And the physical mechanism published in their recent paper shows exactly what I’ve been telling you for the last three years. That the Sun is not in perfect freefall between the gravitational forces of the planets and because as you keep telling us “the Sun is a messy place” rather than a nice simple Newonian biliard ball differential forces are set up which produce energy fluctuations at its surface. Little ‘progress’ is possible when the mechanisms proposed are ‘not even wrong’ or unnecessary.
Just because you don’t seem to be able to understand what they have shown doesn’t mean others can’t. I strongly advise others to spend the money and read Wolff and Patrone’s paper and judge for themselves. If they visit my site and ask nicely I can help if they can’t afford it or don’t believe important knowledge paid for by the public purse should be charged heavily for.
Summary and discussion here: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/wolff-and-patrone-a-new-way-that-planets-can-affect-the-sun/
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 8:17 am If correlation is really good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism.
The problem is that the correlation is not good. Your formula postdicts that the polar fields in 1963-1964 would have been very large [the largest of all cycles]. Measurements of the polar fields began in 1952 at Mount Wilson, and although of lower quality than at WSO all indications are that the field in 1963-64 was not large. Severny in the Crimea simply could not measure any organized polar fields, although he could in 1976, when the fields according to your formula were lower than in the 1960s. The interplanetary field in 1963-1965 was almost as low as in 2008-2009.
All this have been pointed out many times before and would have been enough to invalidate the formula in ordinary scientific discourse. Another problem is that your formula predicts that all solar cycles should have the same lengths, except for a time every ~100 years when your formula predicts a phase shift so that before ~1900 the formula predicts the opposite sign of the actual polar fields. We know the sign of the polar fields all the way back to the 1840s because of the observed 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity which critically depends on the sign of the polar fields. So, all observational data we have [albeit of varying certainty] show that your formula is at variance with observations. It is the mark of a non-scientific enthusiast to ignore observational data if they do not fit. Sometimes, scientists do that too, if they have a very good theoretical reason or mechanism for it, which you do not have.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:10 am Incorrect. They *have* proposed a viable mechanism.
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
That is not a mechanism. They don’t say how that could happen. To ‘posit’ means to “To assume the existence of”. That the Sun is not in perfect freefall between the gravitational forces of the planets and because as you keep telling us “the Sun is a messy place” differential forces are set up which produce energy fluctuations at its surface.
What are those forces in Newtons? and what are the forces ordinarily operating through the solar convection zone?
Rob Spooner
March 5, 2011 9:30 am
I would have hoped that the experience of watching Dr. Dikpati announce five years ago that the mystery of the sunspot cycle had been solved would have saved us from this sort of announcement from NASA, but apparently not. I’m not sure whether it’s progress or not while the problem has been “cracked,” there seems to be no prediction at all for the coming cycle.
What we should have learned is that given enough variables, plus a willingness to introduce time lags and weightings, you can always derive a formula that will correlate with any given set of data to any desired degree of accuracy. And it’s always possible to devise post facto an “explanation.” However, until the future is predicted accurately and otherwise unexpectedly, this is all just conjecture.
Dr. Svalgaard
There are now systematic and reliable results available pre 1967, even those of the period around 1967 to 1970 are a bit ambiguous (see start of the http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm).
So let’s stick to what is known, what is published, what is widely available and what your observatory (WSO) has measured.
My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good, he would be lucky to end-up measuring salt crystals in a Siberien mine, instead measuring the sun’s magnetic field. So let’s get back to real not the imaginary stuff . I hope comrade Severniy had a happy retirement in sunny Crimea.
correction: ‘There are now systematic’ should be: ‘There are no systematic
tallbloke
March 5, 2011 10:15 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:21 am
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:10 am
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
That is not a mechanism. They don’t say how that could happen. To ‘posit’ means to “To assume the existence of”.
Read the paper!
the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
From the abstract:
“We demonstrate the energy with a very simple model in which two fluid elements
of equal mass exchange positions, calling to mind a turbulent field or natural convection. The exchange releases potential energy that, with a minor exception, is available only in the hemisphere facing the barycenter of the planetary system. We calculate its strength and spatial distribution for the strongest case (“vertical”) and for weaker horizontal cases whose motions are all perpendicular to gravity. The vertical cases can raise the kinetic energy of a few well positioned convecting elements in the Sun’s envelope by a factor ≤ 7. “
Rob Spooner says: March 5, 2011 at 9:30 am given enough variables, plus a willingness to introduce time lags and weightings, you can always derive a formula that will correlate with any given set of data to any desired degree of accuracy.
Well that is what makes the formula absolutely unique (perhaps you should look at the formula again), two numbers are very precise astronomic constants (Jupiter and Saturn orbit periods, as used by JPL for the epoch), they are constants and not variables selected for curve fitting.
Dr. Svalgaard had number of attempts (some 2 years ago) to produce a formula with alternative numbers, he ‘came a cropper’ (failed) and gave up, than he labelled it numerology, hoping that the polar field may diverge, but what happens; in the last few months they are exactly on line. He also asked for the (important) ‘correlation difference test’, as shown here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC25.htm , and as you can see formula past with success.
It is easy to make all sorts of pronouncements, but then they should take into account that, what is measured and what is calculated (using numbers from astronomy), here they agree so well, that there is very little space left for doubt.
Of course everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I am talking about real measurements, being it the measured magnetic field or the (two largest) planets’ orbits.
If you can fault calculations, or the solar observatories measurements then I am happy to listen further.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:15 am the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
No, as they do not calculate the forces in Newtons. Nor describe how to convert to potential energy to actual motion and lastly how that would influence how sunspots are formed.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:25 am Well that is what makes the formula absolutely unique (perhaps you should look at the formula again), two numbers are very precise astronomic constants (Jupiter and Saturn orbit periods, as used by JPL for the epoch), they are constants and not variables selected for curve fitting.
Of course they were selected as the planets were selected, and there is yet another arbitrary constant in your formula [2pi/3 or some such]. Dr. Svalgaard had number of attempts (some 2 years ago) to produce a formula with alternative numbers, he ‘came a cropper’ (failed) and gave up
Again, you are economical with the truth. It is easy to construct any number of formula that are an equally good fit. I even provided you with one. It is easy to make all sorts of pronouncements, but then they should take into account that, what is measured and what is calculated (using numbers from astronomy), here they agree so well, that there is very little space left for doubt.
You ignore the data before 1976 where the formula fails. I know, you blame it on bad data, but that is the standard response to failure. If you can fault calculations, or the solar observatories measurements then I am happy to listen further.
Curve fitting cannot be faulted and you do not listen to the observational evidence.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:54 am So let’s stick to what is known, what is published, what is widely available and what your observatory (WSO) has measured.
The earlier data is also available [you have to dig a bit deeper, but I have done the digging for you], and just ignoring what doesn’t fit is not good science. My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good, he would be lucky to end-up measuring salt crystals in a Siberien mine, instead measuring the sun’s magnetic field. So let’s get back to real not the imaginary stuff . I hope comrade Severniy had a happy retirement in sunny Crimea.
Severny was one of the pioneers in solar magnetic measurements. A man of integrity and knowledge. He didn’t just ‘tell’ me. I went to the Crimea to inspect their observatory and to discuss how to measure magnetic fields. In fact, he taught us how to measure the mean field of the Sun [which was what WSO was originally built for]. His data and opinion is ‘real stuff’. http://www.leif.org/EOS/1970SoPh15-3S.pdf
You comment disqualifies you from any serious discussion.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:54 am My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good,…
Our comparison with Mt. Wilson http://www.leif.org/EOS/1977SoPh52-3S.pdf showed good agreement between MWO and the Crimean data, so they were good. Shame on you for your denigration of Severny.
Leif Svalgaard says: (on number of occasions):
…….
1. You came up with an equation which was portion of a parabola, the most ridiculous suggestion one could say.
2. Planets are not selected, they happen to be there, and are two with the largest magnetospheres, as the most influential in the magnetic reconnection events.
3. It is usual to express phase difference between two periodic function in terms of pi, this is an obvious basic fact of science.
4. link you quoted has no data shown prior to 1967. I am happy with Mount Wilson data since 1967 as they are, and they correlate well.
5. Severniy is an honourable scientist and patriot, and could not be considered as such in the USSR, if he reviled state secrets in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crises and at the height of space race, to an American scientist. I whish him all the best if he is still around.
You’ve been at this for some years now, and you are no closer in your futile effort to demolish the formula, clearly you have failed again.
As I said my formula is as tough as a nanocrystalline diamond.
Good night and prosperous future to all.
tallbloke
March 6, 2011 2:47 am
“You[r] comment disqualifies you from any serious discussion.”
Uh-oh. That’s the attitude which got climate science such a bad name. Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:25 am
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:15 am
the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
No, as they do not calculate the forces in Newtons. Nor describe how to convert to potential energy to actual motion and lastly how that would influence how sunspots are formed.
You clearly don’t understand the difference between explanation and quantification.
Anyway, it’s not like you have a successful and irrefutable conceptually complete and fully quantified solar model to offer as a superior possibility is it?
The whole question of how the Sun works is completely open but you continue to act like you have the right to be the gatekeeper of solar science and the final arbiter of ideas about how the Sun does its stuff.
And to tell people they’ve been “disqualified”.
Science is about testing ideas not defining the legitimacy of the people who have them.
John Whitman says:
March 4, 2011 at 9:00 pm
tallbloke/mosher/leif,
Personalization is OK when used in the context of cordiality of blog colleagues…. Be careful, style accompanies content. To me the styles of some of the vehement protagonists on WUWT are very endearing . . . . like very dear old friends. I would sorely miss them if they disappeared.
Wise words John. It would be a shame to take all the passion out of debate. The blog would be a greyer place. Forcing passionately interested people out of the debate would doubtless “improve the signal to noise ratio” as defined by one side, but runs the risk of the development of a faux consensus around theory which becomes dominant not through proof and legitimacy, but through lack of challenge.
And we’ve all seen what that leads to…
V: Btw. my polar field formula http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
is far superior solution to your 1/1000 theory.
L.S.: The amount of polar flux is not theory, but is an observed quantity.
As far as I know, you have no understanding or explanation of how your formula might work.
…..explanation of how above formula might work.
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
Amount of energy in the sun’s surface is so huge, that unless one of these planets plunged into the sun directly, would hardly make any difference.
It is likely to be the other way around, and I was suggesting it for some time now.
It is the change in the energy outflow (not inflow) from the sun, that makes planetary connection work!
I could forward an electric analogy, but that may not be wise, so consider this:
an ordinary magnet sitting on your desk hardly makes any difference to surrounding area (after few short microseconds after being placed there). Bring in its proximity a conductor or ferromagnetic substance than its presence will manifest itself, not only on that object, but influence of that object on the magnet itself , trough the magnetic field lines connecting two; the magnet may even physically move.
How does this translate to the solar system?
Sun radiates electro-magnetic energy in huge amounts continuously. Solar wind, flares (x-rays), coronal holes, CMEs, provide energy moving ahead towards edge of the heliosphere and not much happens.
Now bring in huge magnetosphere and what is the effect:
L.S. : NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]. The solar magnetic field and the Earth’s (Jupiter and Saturn too, my insertion:)magnetic field can reconnect if their geometry is right. The reconnected field lines are then stretched down the geomagnetic tail by the solar wind. This stores magnetic energy in the tail. The tail is unstable [flaps around] and tail field lines can reconnect and ‘snap’ back towards to earth restoring the magnetic field to what it was before. That rapidly changing magnetic field induces an electric field that accelerates whatever particles are present in the tail, resulting in the charges precipitating in the ionosphere [a la Birkeland’s discharges] exciting the atoms of the air to glow as the bright aurorae. ; do remember the magnetic field is connected to the Sun all the time.
So what is happening here:
there is a ‘magnetic short circuit’ in the path, but Dr.S will maysay ‘that this can’t reflect back to the solar surface trough magnetic field lines’, of course it can: NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]
and remember the above example: you can move magnet on your table, by bringing peace of iron, through magnetic field lines connecting two.
Well, in this case the sun does not move, but its surface magnetic configuration reacts to the presence of a short circuited megnetic lines by a magnetosphere via: …the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is] , This reaction is manifested in change in the velocity of meridional flow. This is a surface, or at best, shallow effect.
L.S. :Schatten’s theory is one of the explanations of the solar cycle. It is still as good as any, perhaps better. Recent work by Brandenburg et al. discuss their work “in the context of a distributed solar dynamo where active regions and sunspots might be rather shallow phenomena” arXiv:0910.1835
Is there any theoretical work that may support above outlined hypothesis reflected in the formula?
Not exactly, but there are two very important studies on meridional flow relationship to the polar fields formation from:
1. Wang , Lean , and Sheeley – Hulburt Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/577/1/L53/fulltext
2.. Solanki, Baumann, Schmitt, Schüssler – Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Germany
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2004/42/aa1024/aa1024.right.html
Their studies produce waveforms which highly correlate to the results demonstrated in my formula as you can see here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC17.htm
That is how my formula on polar fields works.
There you have it.
I posted a reply to this short exchange:
V: Btw. my polar field formula http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
is far superior solution to your 1/1000 theory. .
L.S.: . The amount of polar flux is not theory, but is an observed quantity. As far as I know, you have no understanding or explanation of how your formula might work.
but it got lost in the works.
Detail reply how the formula might work is here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Formula%20works.htm
[reply] Rescued, TB.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 1:36 am
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
Amount of energy in the sun’s surface is so huge, that unless one of these planets plunged into the sun directly, would hardly make any difference.
You have misunderstood the mechanisms proposed by these people.
If I use 5N of force to press down the accelerator in my car, is that supplying the power required to make the car accelerate from 20mph to 40mph?
No.
The fuel and air mixture being compressed and ignited in the engine supplies the power to do that. The force on the accelerator modulates the amount of fuel fed to the engine.
In a similar way, the Wolff-Patrone mechanism models the modulation of the release of energy supplied by the sun’s nuclear furnace. The Sun supples the power, the planets trigger the timing of the release of that power to the solar surface.
A better example is the James Watt planetary governor on a steam engine. The pressure in the steam chest builds up as the fire burns and heats the water. The planetary governor spins faster as the engine picks up speed, and throws out its arms further, closing the valve which controls the amount of steam going to the cylinder barrel. The engine slows down, and the governor spins slower, allowing the arms to fall inwards again, opening the valve more. All cybernetic control loops ‘hunt’ around the value where the system is in balance. Perfect balance is never achieved because variables are always… variable.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 12:08 am
Hi Leif, I can see what you are driving at here, but if you think you have the right to restrict the discussion of the Sun and its changing activity to one version of the Babcock-Leighton theory or another and define other hypotheses as ‘unscientific’
This has nothing to do with ‘right’, but with whether the science is sound.
there is legitimate discussion to be had regarding the possible consequences of their findings.
They have put into the literature some correlations [which are not all that great]. They have not proposed a viable mechanism.
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy
This is not a mechanism merely a supposition of correlation, because they have not explained how the coupling might happen.
In my opinion, it’s about time the solar science community spent a comparatively small amount of money funding research into working out how the solar inertial motion is affecting those flow rates, alongside their efforts to successfully model the magnetic fields and sunspot production.
The solar science community spends time on what they think will work, so the lack of interest is indicative of their general opinion of planetary influences.
Let’s all do the science together
By all means, but let’s see some science first from the people ‘in the know’ [as they describe themselves].
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 1:36 am
Landscheidt , Hose, Fairbridge, Charvatova, Wolff and Patrone, Willson and others, as far as I understand, base their ideas on assumptions that planetary system supplying extra energy input in order to power solar cycles.
This I think is wrong.
there is a ‘magnetic short circuit’ in the path, but Dr.S will maysay ‘that this can’t reflect back to the solar surface trough magnetic field lines’, of course it can: NASA says that the magnetic field is connected to the Sun [which it is]
Actually I showed that long ago
its surface magnetic configuration reacts to the presence of a short circuited magnetic lines by a magnetosphere
This is not science, magnetic lines do not short-circuit. The solar wind is 11 times supersonic and magnetic effects cannot move upstream, and even if they could, there is not enough energy to have any effect [contrary to your talk about ‘huge’ magnetosphere, Jupiter’s magnetosphere is tiny seen from the Sun].
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 4:53 am
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism models the modulation of the release of energy supplied by the sun’s nuclear furnace. The Sun supples the power, the planets trigger the timing of the release of that power to the solar surface.
They have not described or explained what makes the modulation. They has to be a coupling. IIRC, they said that IF an mechanism could be found, THEN that could explain the correlation with their new parameter. They did not supply a mechanism.
The problem with the ‘trigger’ hypothesis [and Vuk’s too] is the sun’s magnetic cycle. What drives that? It is clear that even without planets there would still be sunspots and solar activity cycles and magnetic reversals. So, the planets do not generate solar activity. Scientists are usually averse to introduce unknown mechanisms when they are not needed in the first place. The notion of the Sun’s ‘nuclear furnace’ is a bit off the mark. The energy comes out of the Sun’s rotation which is slowed in the process. Young stars rotate faster than the Sun, as they age, stellar activity slows down the rotation.
We have been all over all of the arguments many times before. Little ‘progress’ is possible when the mechanisms proposed are ‘not even wrong’ or unnecessary. To do the science you need to know the science and that is where people on this blog fall short. I remember Vuk claiming in the beginning that the magnetic effects would propagate at the speed of light [which they would for his iron filings example]. There were also the Angular Momentum crowd violating the laws of physics, and on and on.
There are stars with magnetic cycles and planets much closer to the star than the Sun’s [so presumably their effects should be much stronger]. It has been proposed to look for the planetary periods in the cycles for these stars. Nothing has been found yet.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 5:50 am
There are stars with magnetic cycles and planets much closer to the star than the Sun’s [so presumably their effects should be much stronger]. It has been proposed to look for the planetary periods in the cycles for these stars. Nothing has been found yet.
E.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4515v1
“We do not detect enhancement in the activity of the star that may be related to the conjunction of the planet.”
More data, of course, is needed [as always, when things don’t fit].
Well, good luck to them. I hope they’re on to something. Right now I’m not sure it isn’t functionally equivalent to “Sun God was sleeping”, just a different meme to frame it.
Ref – Leif Svalgaard says:
March 4, 2011 at 12:52 pm
steven mosher says:
March 4, 2011 at 12:28 pm
“what exactly is the POINT of personalizing this by trying to figure out whether Dr. S is pleased or not?”
It is clearly easier [and somewhat demeaning of the perpetrators] to engage in personal attacks than in the science. Better filtering of such is one way you could improve WUWT.
_________
I don’t think it’s possible to really tweek WUWT much more than it is currently managed/monitored without changing it and turning it into something very different than it is. The “Best Science Blog Award” speaks to how well it’s currently operating. But… Anthony & Co. might consider something along these lines: A Special Debate Blog Item for “Select” Commenters Only (maybe just 2 –debates get confusing if there’s more than 2 people talking about something; the rest of us could ‘read along’ but not ‘participate’ with tomatoes and rotten fruit). Well, it might be worth a shot. Anyway, $.02 from the peanut gallery.
Dr. Svalgaard
Let’s look at this a bit less emotionally.
Solar activity is a complex problem. Sunspot counting methods over the centuries may or may not be representative, and there are attempts to consolidate it for better or worse.
But also we have nearly 50 years of reliable or very reliable actual instrumental measurements of the polar field. Specifically the results for period 1975 to present, since Dr. Svalgaard and colleagues initiated the WSO measurements, are beyond any doubt or question.
Results are published and widely available.
Some 8 years ago I devised and later published a formula in Jan 2004. Final version (with minor alteration; 1941 was substituted with 1941-3, to represent the polar field cycle’s advance in relation to the following sunspot cycle is here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
This simple formula tracks accurately the published results of both solar observatories.
So, we have a simple solution to a complex problem, which matches reality to the highest degree of Rsq = 0.935, for any event in the solar science.
Those are the facts.
What is mechanism?
We can all speculate, but it may be a bit too greedy of me, to come up with the mechanism as well as the formula.
F=gM1M2/d^2 has been around for centuries, and do we know what is the mechanism: graviton, gravity wave, warped space; maybe?
If you whish to look for mechanism than you have to find one with an agreement, with the actual physical event, equal or in excess of R^2 > = 0.935.
Is there one? Definitely not! Not even a mile close.
So, we have here:
a) Complex problem
b) Simple numerical solution based on accurate astronomical constants.
c) Highest degree of agreement with the actual measurements obtained.
But what about mechanism?
As Dr. Svalgaard said:
If correlation is really good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism.
One might say it is ‘teflon coated’ formula, as tough as a nanocrystalline diamond.
Well, I think that’s good enough for time being.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 5:50 am
They have put into the literature some correlations [which are not all that great]. They have not proposed a viable mechanism.
Incorrect. They *have* proposed a viable mechanism.
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
This is not a mechanism merely a supposition of correlation, because they have not explained how the coupling might happen.
Incorrect again. They have not only explained how it might happen, but modeled the forces involved. And the physical mechanism published in their recent paper shows exactly what I’ve been telling you for the last three years. That the Sun is not in perfect freefall between the gravitational forces of the planets and because as you keep telling us “the Sun is a messy place” rather than a nice simple Newonian biliard ball differential forces are set up which produce energy fluctuations at its surface.
Little ‘progress’ is possible when the mechanisms proposed are ‘not even wrong’ or unnecessary.
Just because you don’t seem to be able to understand what they have shown doesn’t mean others can’t. I strongly advise others to spend the money and read Wolff and Patrone’s paper and judge for themselves. If they visit my site and ask nicely I can help if they can’t afford it or don’t believe important knowledge paid for by the public purse should be charged heavily for.
Summary and discussion here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/wolff-and-patrone-a-new-way-that-planets-can-affect-the-sun/
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 8:17 am
If correlation is really good, one can live with an as yet undiscovered mechanism.
The problem is that the correlation is not good. Your formula postdicts that the polar fields in 1963-1964 would have been very large [the largest of all cycles]. Measurements of the polar fields began in 1952 at Mount Wilson, and although of lower quality than at WSO all indications are that the field in 1963-64 was not large. Severny in the Crimea simply could not measure any organized polar fields, although he could in 1976, when the fields according to your formula were lower than in the 1960s. The interplanetary field in 1963-1965 was almost as low as in 2008-2009.
All this have been pointed out many times before and would have been enough to invalidate the formula in ordinary scientific discourse. Another problem is that your formula predicts that all solar cycles should have the same lengths, except for a time every ~100 years when your formula predicts a phase shift so that before ~1900 the formula predicts the opposite sign of the actual polar fields. We know the sign of the polar fields all the way back to the 1840s because of the observed 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity which critically depends on the sign of the polar fields. So, all observational data we have [albeit of varying certainty] show that your formula is at variance with observations. It is the mark of a non-scientific enthusiast to ignore observational data if they do not fit. Sometimes, scientists do that too, if they have a very good theoretical reason or mechanism for it, which you do not have.
Incidentally I have just published a new paper from one of my contributors here
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/patrick-geryl-the-sun’s-eleven-year-magnetic-reversal
The scientists Hathaway is criticising and other people interested in differential solar rotation and its relationship to solar cycle length and amplitude might find it to be of interest.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:10 am
Incorrect. They *have* proposed a viable mechanism.
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
That is not a mechanism. They don’t say how that could happen. To ‘posit’ means to “To assume the existence of”.
That the Sun is not in perfect freefall between the gravitational forces of the planets and because as you keep telling us “the Sun is a messy place” differential forces are set up which produce energy fluctuations at its surface.
What are those forces in Newtons? and what are the forces ordinarily operating through the solar convection zone?
I would have hoped that the experience of watching Dr. Dikpati announce five years ago that the mystery of the sunspot cycle had been solved would have saved us from this sort of announcement from NASA, but apparently not. I’m not sure whether it’s progress or not while the problem has been “cracked,” there seems to be no prediction at all for the coming cycle.
What we should have learned is that given enough variables, plus a willingness to introduce time lags and weightings, you can always derive a formula that will correlate with any given set of data to any desired degree of accuracy. And it’s always possible to devise post facto an “explanation.” However, until the future is predicted accurately and otherwise unexpectedly, this is all just conjecture.
Dr. Svalgaard
There are now systematic and reliable results available pre 1967, even those of the period around 1967 to 1970 are a bit ambiguous (see start of the http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm).
So let’s stick to what is known, what is published, what is widely available and what your observatory (WSO) has measured.
My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good, he would be lucky to end-up measuring salt crystals in a Siberien mine, instead measuring the sun’s magnetic field. So let’s get back to real not the imaginary stuff . I hope comrade Severniy had a happy retirement in sunny Crimea.
correction: ‘There are now systematic’ should be: ‘There are no systematic
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:21 am
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:10 am
The Wolff-Patrone mechanism posits changing amounts of energy release from overturning convective cells which relate to the motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system.
That is not a mechanism. They don’t say how that could happen. To ‘posit’ means to “To assume the existence of”.
Read the paper!
the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
From the abstract:
“We demonstrate the energy with a very simple model in which two fluid elements
of equal mass exchange positions, calling to mind a turbulent field or natural convection. The exchange releases potential energy that, with a minor exception, is available only in the hemisphere facing the barycenter of the planetary system. We calculate its strength and spatial distribution for the strongest case (“vertical”) and for weaker horizontal cases whose motions are all perpendicular to gravity. The vertical cases can raise the kinetic energy of a few well positioned convecting elements in the Sun’s envelope by a factor ≤ 7. “
Rob Spooner says: March 5, 2011 at 9:30 am
given enough variables, plus a willingness to introduce time lags and weightings, you can always derive a formula that will correlate with any given set of data to any desired degree of accuracy.
Well that is what makes the formula absolutely unique (perhaps you should look at the formula again), two numbers are very precise astronomic constants (Jupiter and Saturn orbit periods, as used by JPL for the epoch), they are constants and not variables selected for curve fitting.
Dr. Svalgaard had number of attempts (some 2 years ago) to produce a formula with alternative numbers, he ‘came a cropper’ (failed) and gave up, than he labelled it numerology, hoping that the polar field may diverge, but what happens; in the last few months they are exactly on line. He also asked for the (important) ‘correlation difference test’, as shown here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC25.htm , and as you can see formula past with success.
It is easy to make all sorts of pronouncements, but then they should take into account that, what is measured and what is calculated (using numbers from astronomy), here they agree so well, that there is very little space left for doubt.
Of course everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I am talking about real measurements, being it the measured magnetic field or the (two largest) planets’ orbits.
If you can fault calculations, or the solar observatories measurements then I am happy to listen further.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:15 am
the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
No, as they do not calculate the forces in Newtons. Nor describe how to convert to potential energy to actual motion and lastly how that would influence how sunspots are formed.
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:15 am
Incidentally I have just published a new paper from one of my contributors here
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/patrick-geryl-the-sun’s-eleven-year-magnetic-reversal
Can you [or anybody else] here in a paragraph explain the central idea. It eludes me when reading his stuff.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:25 am
Well that is what makes the formula absolutely unique (perhaps you should look at the formula again), two numbers are very precise astronomic constants (Jupiter and Saturn orbit periods, as used by JPL for the epoch), they are constants and not variables selected for curve fitting.
Of course they were selected as the planets were selected, and there is yet another arbitrary constant in your formula [2pi/3 or some such].
Dr. Svalgaard had number of attempts (some 2 years ago) to produce a formula with alternative numbers, he ‘came a cropper’ (failed) and gave up
Again, you are economical with the truth. It is easy to construct any number of formula that are an equally good fit. I even provided you with one.
It is easy to make all sorts of pronouncements, but then they should take into account that, what is measured and what is calculated (using numbers from astronomy), here they agree so well, that there is very little space left for doubt.
You ignore the data before 1976 where the formula fails. I know, you blame it on bad data, but that is the standard response to failure.
If you can fault calculations, or the solar observatories measurements then I am happy to listen further.
Curve fitting cannot be faulted and you do not listen to the observational evidence.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:54 am
So let’s stick to what is known, what is published, what is widely available and what your observatory (WSO) has measured.
The earlier data is also available [you have to dig a bit deeper, but I have done the digging for you], and just ignoring what doesn’t fit is not good science.
My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good, he would be lucky to end-up measuring salt crystals in a Siberien mine, instead measuring the sun’s magnetic field. So let’s get back to real not the imaginary stuff . I hope comrade Severniy had a happy retirement in sunny Crimea.
Severny was one of the pioneers in solar magnetic measurements. A man of integrity and knowledge. He didn’t just ‘tell’ me. I went to the Crimea to inspect their observatory and to discuss how to measure magnetic fields. In fact, he taught us how to measure the mean field of the Sun [which was what WSO was originally built for]. His data and opinion is ‘real stuff’. http://www.leif.org/EOS/1970SoPh15-3S.pdf
You comment disqualifies you from any serious discussion.
vukcevic says:
March 5, 2011 at 9:54 am
My advice is forget what Severniy told to you (an American scientist) about USSR results. If he did tell you real results, even if they were any good,…
Our comparison with Mt. Wilson http://www.leif.org/EOS/1977SoPh52-3S.pdf showed good agreement between MWO and the Crimean data, so they were good. Shame on you for your denigration of Severny.
Leif Svalgaard says: (on number of occasions):
…….
1. You came up with an equation which was portion of a parabola, the most ridiculous suggestion one could say.
2. Planets are not selected, they happen to be there, and are two with the largest magnetospheres, as the most influential in the magnetic reconnection events.
3. It is usual to express phase difference between two periodic function in terms of pi, this is an obvious basic fact of science.
4. link you quoted has no data shown prior to 1967. I am happy with Mount Wilson data since 1967 as they are, and they correlate well.
5. Severniy is an honourable scientist and patriot, and could not be considered as such in the USSR, if he reviled state secrets in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crises and at the height of space race, to an American scientist. I whish him all the best if he is still around.
You’ve been at this for some years now, and you are no closer in your futile effort to demolish the formula, clearly you have failed again.
As I said my formula is as tough as a nanocrystalline diamond.
Good night and prosperous future to all.
“You[r] comment disqualifies you from any serious discussion.”
Uh-oh. That’s the attitude which got climate science such a bad name.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:25 am
tallbloke says:
March 5, 2011 at 10:15 am
the mechanism for the energy release is fully explained.
No, as they do not calculate the forces in Newtons. Nor describe how to convert to potential energy to actual motion and lastly how that would influence how sunspots are formed.
You clearly don’t understand the difference between explanation and quantification.
Anyway, it’s not like you have a successful and irrefutable conceptually complete and fully quantified solar model to offer as a superior possibility is it?
The whole question of how the Sun works is completely open but you continue to act like you have the right to be the gatekeeper of solar science and the final arbiter of ideas about how the Sun does its stuff.
And to tell people they’ve been “disqualified”.
Science is about testing ideas not defining the legitimacy of the people who have them.