The sunspot number for February from SIDC is down again, to 33.1
Here’s the source of that data: http://sidc.oma.be/DATA/monthssn.dat
So far, cycle 24 is significantly lower in SSN number that the last three cycles, in addition to having a delayed start. While the delta of the drop in Feb 2012 is not unusual by itself, it is the lowest observed value of the last three cycles this far into a new cycle.
Compared to the entire data set back to 1749, which I’ve plotted below…
…it shows cycle 24 so far to be on par with cycle 12 and cycle 6 in amplitude.
While this drop in SSN number might appear to some as a signal for a possible peaking of cycle 24, there is other evidence that suggests otherwise. For example the Solar Polar Field Strength. Usually the polarity of the North and South solar hemispheres flips at solar max. As you can see in the graph we are close but not quite there yet. And, it has flattened out compared with previous recent transitions.
Source: http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
Leif Svalgaard also tracks this and here are a couple of his graphs:
Source: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-1966-now.png
Source: http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png
Leif has previously suggested that he thinks for solar polar field will see the flip later 2012 or early 2013. We don’t have long to wait.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has not yet updated their Solar Cycle Progression page, but will in a few days. In the meantime, here are the SSN and Ap index graphs manually updated with SIDC data to give you an idea of what they will look like compared to the forecast (in red):
The Ap Geomagnetic field index, just like the SSN, is down again, suggesting the sun’s magnetic dynamo is not winding up like it did near the peak of cycle 23 and previous cycles.
We live in interesting times.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“The solar polar fields reverse in every solar cycle, usually near maximum.”
What if we don’t get a field reversal ? Is such an event possible ? Could that lead to a geomagnetic excursion here ?
srvdisciple says: March 2, 2012 at 8:37 am
[Sorry, maybe [someone] has asked this before, but why-oh-why in the 21st century do you use “decimal years” on the x-axis?]
A ‘Calendar Date’ is subject to the whims of political and religous leaders;
Solstice and Eqinox are not. Data should be recorded in an umabigous way.
Also today is the 13th of Esfand 1390 (the 14th century) in the Persian world.
In Europe in 1752, this was ‘September’
September 1752
S M Tu W Th F S
1 2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
richard verney says, March 2, 2012 at 4:11 am
Depending how far into the future you’re focused, you may be overlooking the split demographics of the west. Especially if mortality increases with the gradual onset of a grand minimum. Nothing like feet held to the fire to ramp up a practical response. There won’t be time to dwell on mistakes of the past, at least in Europe anyway.
e.g. http://www.fpri.org/ww/0505.200407.eberstadt.demography.html
John from CA;
[They don’t adjust their projection like the other agencies who predict.]
Wot! They DO adjust their assesment with new information, studies and measurements, unlike the other agencies who ‘project/forecast/indicate/any word other than predict’
Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Update released May 8, 2009
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/sunspot.gif
May 2009 Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Update
First Solar Cycle 24 Prediction April 2007
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
CONSENSUS STATEMENT OF THE SOLAR CYCLE 24 PREDICTION PANEL
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/Statement_01.html
News from the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel October 13, 2006
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/Oct_2006.html
The May 24, 2007 List shows the predictions considered.
Table 1: Predictions of Solar Cycle 24
Author and Date, Predicted maximum ,Category and Summary
Svalgaard, et al. 2005, 70 ± 2, — P Polar magnetic field strength
at solar minima
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/May_24_2007_table.pdf
Just waiting for the “Watts Effect”………
Andrew30 says:
March 2, 2012 at 11:34 am
==========
Very interesting but my point was that they don’t change their projections like some do routinely at NASA.
They, as a body, stand by their science and predictions and thus far are absolutely amazing!!!
Spots or no spots….all the same: According to the renowned solar researcher
Judith Lean, global GMT temps will be up by 0.14 C globally in 2014, all spots
are taken into account…Warmists know, what they are doing, do not worry, throw out
the sand and buy charcoal for X-mas….
JS
Probably worth pointing out, the “Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel is organized and chaired by NOAA and funded by NASA” so no dis to NASA intended.
Jim Cripwell says:
March 2, 2012 at 3:47 am
Luckily, not quite true. The IPCC has painted itself into a corner. If it agrees that something other than CO2 is driving climate, then the certainly that it wrote about in the TAR and AR4, is shown to be just plain wrong. If the sun is having a huge effect, then it cannot be “very likely” that CO2 caused the changes observed at the end of the 20th century.
I would suggest it’s the solarphiles who’ve painted themselves into a corner. We’ve had several years of low (relative to recent decades) solar activity and there has been no significant drop in UAH global temperatures. In 2006 David Archibald wrote that we would be seeing the effects in a “few short years”. According to the CET record, the temperature decline supposedly associated with SC5 had already occurred long before the SC5 peak. In fact much of the decline happened even before SC5 got under way – but we’ll gloss over that.
The IPCC (of which I am not a supporter) have always maintained that solar activity was a significant driver of climate change in the early part of the 20th century and before that so they do have a bit of wriggle room in the event of a lack of warming. They have also stated, with some justification, that as there was very little trend in solar activity between the late 1950s and the end of the 20th century, solar activity cannot have been responsible for the pronounced warming since the mid-1970s. You cannot fault their logic on this.
Since the Chicxulub impact c. 65-million YBP, six succeeding geological eras have averaged about 12 – 16 million years apiece. Given the current Pleistocene’s mere 2.6-million year duration thus far, we expect a minimum 10-million more years of well-defined cyclical ice ages averaging 102,000 years, interspersed with interglacial epochs of median 12,250 years.
Absent a 1,500-year impact-induced “cold shock” called the Younger Dryas, which ended some 9,500 YBP, our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch would likely have ended c. AD 450, coincident with fading of the so-called Roman Warm which led to a 500-year Dark Age previous to a Medieval Warm through c. AD 1325 followed by the 500-year Little Ice Age (LIA) which peaked c. 1715 and ended only c. 1885.
Now as Sol enters a cyclical down-phase similar to her Maunder Minimum of 1645 – 1715, it behooves researchers to put current circumstances in long-term context and perspective. Quite likely, Pleistocene ice ages are driven more by geophysical/plate-tectonic factors than any relatively superficial surface phenomena– that is, since North and South American continents wall off Earth’s eastern from western hemispheres, atmospheric/oceanic circulation pattens will remain blocked until these continental landmasses once more drift apart.
In 1961, Edward Lorenz founded Chaos Theory on a climatological basis, asking “Does Earth have a climate? The answer, at first glance obvious, improves on acquaintance.” Just so, billion-year Pre-Cambrian ice ages persisted while all Earth’s landmasses compressed together in South Polar regions; only in the last 550-million years, about one-ninth Earth’s history, have major plates distributed themselves more equably. For all their detailed expertise, researchers ignoring Earth’s meta-historical development remain blind to critical long-duration processes.
Yesterday Vatican released secret document recording the Inquisition Proceedings of the trial of Galileo Galilei http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large_652x488_scaled/photos/1082679.jpg
SteveSadlov says:
March 2, 2012 at 9:55 am
The data from the Maunder Minimum start says we are not guaranteed a second, or even multiple peaks.
To date, only 1 is in the bank.
Huh. “Welcome to solar max…?” Shouldn’t the predicted values curve be adjusted down? It looks like an over-estimate now.
Well said Peter Miller!
Within a few years, there are going to be a lot of angry voters out there in ex-CAGW countries blaming ex-politicians for fraud and mis-representation. The real price however will be paid by the citizens of these same CAGW countries in the West. As usual the innocents will suffer.
CAGW will have made the West significantly de-industrialised, with high energy costs and millions will be pushed to the brink of poverty. The landscape will be littered with rusting turbine relics. China will be triumphant as it was many hundreds of years ago. CAGW countries will pick the crumbs from the floor.
Viewed in hindsight, no one will believe the long period of insane stupidity. No one will have remembered Stalin and Hitler but the Chinese will have forgotten Mao Tse Tung also.
Keep in mind that a lot of smoothing is going on…..First the mean is taken monthly, then the Means are smoothed by taking 12 month running average.
It takes about 6 months for a change to show up. This dip we are seeing in the monthly means has been going on for about 3 months . If it keeps going down and staying down for another 3 months, then its time to worry.
@ur momisugly MAVukcevic says:
March 2, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Lucky you that you were not born then. Could you imagine WHO would have been your Inquisition judge? LOL!
You would have sent to the stake! I can hear your prosecutor crying: “Correlation is not causation!”
@ntesdorf says:
March 2, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Within a few years ……it will be too late. Big Brother will tell you what to believe. You know HE speaks “EX-CATHEDRA”, no doubts will be possible then.
@ur momisugly AdolfoGiurfa
> Just waiting for the “Watts Effect”
http://www.solarham.com
SOLAR FLARE ALERT: A moderate solar flare reaching M3.3 took place at 17:46 UTC Friday afternoon. The flare was centered around a new active region on the Eastern Limb. Stay Tuned to SolarHam.com for the latest information.
Usually the polarity of the North and South solar hemispheres flips at solar max. As you can see in the graph we are close but not quite there yet. And, it has flattened out compared with previous recent transitions.
Has there been a solar maximum were the polarity DIDN’T flip?
Fabulous site. Followed it for years, then had to swear off. There weren’t enough hours in the day/week to obsessively track both it and WUWT and Climate Etc. and a sprinkling of others. I’m not sure I dare click on your link …
Edit note:
Something’s off with the grammar or wording here —
“Leif has previously suggested that he thinks for solar polar field will see the flip later 2012 or early 2013. ”
forthe??
It would seem that the time is ripe for those that can to invest in coal,gas and oil futures and sit tight. The CAGW thing does not seem to have long to live, the plebs are awakening faster than the sun is declining and the coming years will see a paradigm shift in public and political sentiment.
Real facts and truth have always come to the surface, eventually in all facits of life. That we are heading into a cooling cycle regardless of CO2, will eventually dawn on all the pundits.
That the sun was due for a holiday was pointed out by some clever people that actually do science, they were pooh poohed by the consensus as the sun apparently has nothing to do with our climate.
I have just spent an idyllic two weeks flying around the tropic zones watching Willis’s cooling towers in action, hard to put a number on the quantity of them but myriad would be close.
We are but fleas on this planet, an annoyance but no way are we killing the planet, fly over Asia a densely populated area, and what do you see, forests and farm land, green green green.
It is time I feel that all people belittled and defamed by the consensus mob stood up to be counted and openly decried the infamy that is CAGW.
The story goes that that when Napoleon went to war with Russia, it got so cold, that during travelling, the horse’s backsides and tails froze up. Because of hunger some would cut from the horse and eat it.
I am sure the alarmists CAGW will find some reason to blame the coming colder years on our carbon footprint, and perhaps they might not be completely wrong about that either.
More CO2 is definitely not going to make it warmer.
Sorry.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/#comment-911368
So far, cycle 24 is significantly lower in SSN number that the last three cycles
TYPO: “that” should be “than”?
Schitzree says:
March 2, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Has there been a solar maximum were the polarity DIDN’T flip?
The solar polarity has a signature in geomagnetic activity. We have good data back to the 1840s showing polar reversals at every maximum back to then. Before that, we don’t know for sure. Theoretically, we expect a flip every time.