I’ve managed to get a copy of the official press release provided by the Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate to MSM journalists, for today’s stunning AAS announcement and it is reprinted in full here:
WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN?
MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED
A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
The results were announced at the annual meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces:
http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/SPD2011/
“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
Spot numbers and other solar activity rise and fall about every 11 years, which is half of the Sun’s 22-year magnetic interval since the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse with each cycle. An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots during 1645-1715.
Hill is the lead author on one of three papers on these results being presented this week. Using data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) of six observing stations around the world, the team translates surface pulsations caused by sound reverberating through the Sun into models of the internal structure. One of their discoveries is an east-west zonal wind flow inside the Sun, called the torsional oscillation, which starts at
mid-latitudes and migrates towards the equator. The latitude of this wind stream matches the new spot formation in each cycle, and successfully predicted the late onset of the current Cycle 24.
“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”
In the second paper, Matt Penn and William Livingston see a long-term weakening trend in the strength of sunspots, and predict that by Cycle 25 magnetic fields erupting on the Sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Spots are formed when intense magnetic flux tubes erupt from the interior and keep cooled gas from circulating back to the interior. For typical sunspots this magnetism has a strength of 2,500 to 3,500 gauss
(Earth’s magnetic field is less than 1 gauss at the surface); the field must reach at least 1,500 gauss to form a dark spot.
Using more than 13 years of sunspot data collected at the McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona, Penn and Livingston observed that the average field strength declined about 50 gauss per year during Cycle 23 and now in Cycle 24. They also observed that spot temperatures have risen exactly as expected for such changes in the magnetic field. If the trend continues, the field strength will drop below the 1,500 gauss threshold and
spots will largely disappear as the magnetic field is no longer strong enough to overcome convective forces on the solar surface.
Moving outward, Richard Altrock, manager of the Air Force’s coronal research program at NSO’s Sunspot, NM, facilities has observed a slowing of the “rush to the poles,” the rapid poleward march of magnetic activity observed in the Sun’s faint corona. Altrock used four decades of observations with NSO’s 40-cm (16-inch) coronagraphic telescope at Sunspot.
“A key thing to understand is that those wonderful, delicate coronal features are actually powerful, robust magnetic structures rooted in the interior of the Sun,” Altrock explained. “Changes we see in the corona reflect changes deep inside the Sun.”
Altrock used a photometer to map iron heated to 2 million degrees C (3.6 million F). Stripped of half of its electrons, it is easily concentrated by magnetism rising from the Sun. In a well-known pattern, new solar activity emerges first at about 70 degrees latitude at the start of a cycle, then towards the equator as the cycle ages. At the same time, the new magnetic fields push remnants of the older cycle as far as 85 degrees poleward.
“In cycles 21 through 23, solar maximum occurred when this rush appeared at an average latitude of 76 degrees,” Altrock said. “Cycle 24 started out late and slow and may not be strong enough to create a rush to the poles, indicating we’ll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all. If the rush to the poles fails to complete, this creates a tremendous dilemma for the theorists, as it would mean that Cycle 23’s magnetic field will not completely disappear from the polar regions (the rush to the poles accomplishes this feat). No one knows what the Sun will do in that case.”
All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.
“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
# # #
Media teleconference information: This release is the subject of a media
teleconference at the current meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s
Solar Physics Division (AAS/SPD). The telecon will be held at 11 a.m. MDT
(17:00 UTC) on Tuesday, 14 June. Bona fide journalists are invited to attend
the teleconference and should send an e-mail to the AAS/SPD press officer,
Craig DeForest, at deforest@boulder.swri.edu, with the subject heading “SPD:
SOLAR MEDIA TELECON”, before 16:00 UTC. You will receive dial-in information
before the telecon.
These results have been presented at the current meeting of the AAS/SPD.
Citations:
16.10: “Large-Scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle
25?” by Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T.P. Larson,
J. Schou & M. J. Thompson.
17.21: “A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor” by W. C. Livingston, M. Penn
& L. Svalgard.
18.04: “Whither Goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona” by R. C.
Altrock.
Source:
Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/SPD_solar_cycle_release.txt
Supplemental images: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/
izen says:
June 16, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Mauna Loa is linearly increasing, UAH/RSS flat. Were there a positive feedback relation between atmospheric CO2 and global temps the latter should be diverging in the other direction.
No relation is evident. Speculation has had its day, yet dogs return to their vomit.
BenfromMO – could you be so kind as to provide citations for the multiple conclusions assertions you make at June 14, 2011 at 11:52 pm?
I think many of us would be keen to review them.
Moderate Republican,
What assertions are you referring to? The 60 year ocean cycle is rather well known, look up data on the PDO. A simple search on WUWT will probably uncover about 10 different articles on it. The CAGW position is that the cooling from 50-75 was the result of other substances which in turn is rather weakly correlated, but ocean cycle data goes all the way back to 1850. There is also evidence of it in the proxies, but this evidence is rather weak to be honest…maybe the cycles are stronger today for some reason?
S. hemisphere temps? That is also well-known. Look at the charts. The coverage is obviously a lot less. The main thing here is that the S. Hemisphere does not appear to have a 60 year cycle…but I could go into it more, but thats a very complicated story so to speak.
Oceans hold a lot of heat and keep temperatures steady? Thats not really much of an assertion, its a fact that even rapid CAGW believers if I may call them that state.
So again, kind of curious where you are referring to?
I will probably move to the next thread which seems to have some mistakes in it (the story that is…) I am not completely sure I agree with the story being said there…its rather interesting though. I think this kind of science is necessary…I am sure since I am not a rapid believer in solar influences I might take some flak (-:
But that is what scientists go through.
Hi Ben – thanks for your response.
I just find it helpful to have a citation to reference since some of these topics are pretty complex and some of the conclusions drawn (generically – I’m not saying yours) are debatable.
Mark Wilson says:
June 17, 2011 at 6:05 am
If that supposition were true, then TSI should go up during a normal cycle minimum. It doesn’t.
It goes up from min to max.
Leif, are you saying that TSI is greatest during the low count portion of solar cycle?
Mark Wilson says:
June 17, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Leif, are you saying that TSI is greatest during the low count portion of solar cycle?
I was trying to make sense of your cryptic sentence: ” TSI should go up during a normal cycle minimum”
So we can’t really say much about how TSI varies over time yet.
I [and many researchers] think we can. Variations of TSI are caused by variations of the Sun’s magnetic field. That we know from how these things have varied the past 35 years. The Sun’s magnetic field is dragged out by the solar wind and impacts the Earth, causing variations of the Earth’s magnetic field, which we have measured carefully since 1835. It also causes variations of the cosmic ray flux at Earth, that in turn creates radioactive atoms [10Be and 14C] when colliding with air. These atoms settle in polar ice and in tree rings, where we can measure them. Measurements extend back more that 10,000 years. So we have reasonable knowledge of TSI that far back.
Maybe this will be the dawn of a new ice age. The human race needs a hard reset anyways.
So I’m very curious about something and I can’t find the original source of my thought, just yet. But I remember a few years ago that there was someone claiming that our soot production was dimming the amount of radiation reaching the earth and was the only reason Global Warming hasn’t spiraled out of control yet. When I read it, I remember thinking that their data looked pretty legit, that indeed the sun was “dimming” on the surface of the Earth, even though their conclusions about the cause seemed dubious. I’m wondering if their data on surface “dimming” matches observations from something like SOHO, over the same period, and if there is indeed a “dimming” that is related to what we’re seeing with loss of magnetic vitality on the sun. We certainly see a weaker solar wind lately, allowing more of those cloud forming cosmic rays in. What I’m hoping for is a cooling apocalypse where there is less radiation warming the earth, more cosmic rays bombarding the atmosphere, resulting out of control cooling that drops us 3-4 deg F and my dog and cat start living together – mass hysteria!
If anyone remembers or knows where that “dimming” research is and can point it out, I’d like to take a look at it again and see if there is some sort of correlation, particularly with the Penn & Livingston data, and just see if they chart together very well…