by David Archibald
Figure 1: Heliospheric Current Sheet Tilt Angle 1976 – 2012
The heliospheric current sheet tilt angle is currently at 67°. Solar maximum occurs when it reaches 74° – so a little bit further to go.
Figure 2: Ap Index 1984 – 2012
Three years into Solar Cycle 24, the Ap Index has now risen to the level of previous minima.
Figure 3: Solar Wind Flow Pressure 1971 – 2012
Figure 3 shows that solar wind flow pressure has returned to levels prevailing over most of Solar Cycle 23.
Figure 4: Solar Cycle 20 compared to Solar Cycle 24
The last time the planet had a discernible cooling period was in the 1970s, associated with Solar Cycle 20. This figure was developed to compare the Ap index and neutron count of Solar Cycle 24 with Solar Cycle 20. In Solar Cycle 20, the Ap index diverged a long way from the neutron count.
Figure 5: Interplanetary Magnetic Field 1968 – 2012
Similar to the Ap Index, the Interplanetary Magnetic Field is now up to the levels of previous solar minima.
(note this figure has been corrected from the original, thanks to Dr. Leif Svalgaard)
Figure 6: Solar Cycle 24 Sunspot Number compared to the Dalton Minimum
This chart compares the development of Solar Cycle 24 with the last de Vries cycle event – the Dalton Minimum. The Solar Cycle 24 ramp up in terms of sunspot number is tracking much the same as that of Solar Cycle 5 but about a year ahead of it.
Figure 7: Aligned neutron count by solar cycle
In this figure, the neutron count of the last five solar cycles is aligned on month of minimum. It shows that Solar Cycle 24 hasn’t departed much from where Solar Cycle 23 was at the same time. On the other hand, the neutron count could go sideways from here.
Figure 8: Predicting year of Solar Cycle 25 maximum
It is estimated that Solar Cycle 24 maximum will be centred on May 2013 and using Altrock’s green corona emissions diagram, we can derive the year of the 24/25 minimum as 2026. This means that the fall time for Solar Cycle 24 will be 13 years. For all the numbered solar cycles, plotting fall time from the maximum against the maximum to maximum time enables us to make an estimate of the year of Solar Cycle 25 maximum. From Figure 8, the Solar Cycle 25 maximum will be 19 years after the Solar Cycle 24 maximum in 2013, which makes it 2032.
Figure 9: Solar Cycles 1749 – 2040
The large decline in the sunspot number and F 10.7 flux at the beginning of the year, prior to the recent major flare, suggests that Solar Cycle 24 will look like Solar Cycle 5 in having a low base of activity with periodic spikes. The estimate of 7 for the peak of Solar Cycle 25 is from Livingston and Penn.
Comparing the butterfly diagrams (closeup) of SC24 vs 14 shows the departure:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/uvp1314bh.PNG
And a very odd behavior of SC24 failing to close the gap in latitudes, which has gotten protracted.
SC24 is NOT a repeat of SC14, though it may superficially look similar.
rbateman says:
March 16, 2012 at 8:40 pm
SC24 is NOT a repeat of SC14, though it may superficially look similar.
No solar cycle is a repeat of any other.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2012 at 8:08 pm
put your money where your mouth is or shut up.
Charming. Some of us have profited from the public purse more than others. A non reversing pole is just theory without any rigid data right now, but it will stir up solar science if it happens. I am certainly not guaranteeing this to occur but happy to see you are absolutely certain of both poles reversing at SC24 max. Page is bookmarked.
what twisted nonsense is that? And Babcock-Leighton is also valid for Grand Minima. The solar cycle operated fine during the Maunder and Spoerer Minima.
That twisted logic is a statement you made a couple of years ago somewhere on here when asked what would be the deal breaker for you regarding the Babcock-Leighton model. If my memory serves me correctly we were talking about the Hale cycle and non reversing poles.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2012 at 8:50 pm
No solar cycle is a repeat of any other.
So much for forecasting via hindcasting, then.
If you can’t predict in what aspect the next Solar Cycle will depart from similar cycles, at some point they will become dissimilar without warning.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 16, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Some of us have profited from the public purse more than others.
If so, you should be well-provisioned to accept a wager.
A non reversing pole is just theory without any rigid data right now
Not even ‘theory’, but wild speculation.
I am certainly not guaranteeing this to occur but happy to see you are absolutely certain of both poles reversing at SC24 max. Page is bookmarked.
Then remember to come back to it after the polar reversals and give me the necessary credit. The ‘happy to see’ bit is an unneeded jab.
That twisted logic is a statement you made a couple of years ago somewhere on here when asked what would be the deal breaker for you regarding the Babcock-Leighton model. If my memory serves me correctly we were talking about the Hale cycle and non reversing poles.
You seem not to know what the B-L model is about. Central to the model is that the following sunspot polarity migrates to the pole in each hemisphere separately and if enough new flux reaches a pole and reverses the polarity, the next cycle in that hemisphere will have sunspot polarities reversed. If not, the next cycle will not be reversed in the hemisphere. The two hemispheres operate largely separately. The deal breaker would be if the pole did not reverse, but the spots did or vice versa. This may or may not have come across back then.
rbateman says:
March 16, 2012 at 9:29 pm
So much for forecasting via hindcasting, then.
You got it.
rbateman says:
March 16, 2012 at 8:40 pm
And a very odd behavior of SC24
What is interesting is that SC24 seems to have a lot less blue data points, i.e. spots with no penumbra, which are small spots [I have never seen a large spot without penumbra], so SC24 is losing the small spots compared to SC14. This is consistent with a L&P effect.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2012 at 10:22 pm
What is interesting is that SC24 seems to have a lot less blue data points, i.e. spots with no penumbra, which are small spots [I have never seen a large spot without penumbra], so SC24 is losing the small spots compared to SC14. This is consistent with a L&P effect.
Yes, exactly. And it’s demonstrating that the attrition of small spots is well underway.
A difficulty arises when one tries to determine what SC24 would look like if there were no L&P effect at play.
You got any ideas on that?
rbateman says:
March 17, 2012 at 4:13 am
Yes, exactly. And it’s demonstrating that the attrition of small spots is well underway.
A difficulty arises when one tries to determine what SC24 would look like if there were no L&P effect at play. You got any ideas on that?
No
This one time I sent down to NASA.
There was no answer-which for me is not important.
The above cycle of sunspots from the 11.18181818 year average for several billion years.
See how to get a period of 123 years. or other periods.
Do reriod of 123 years is not butterfly diagram?
What I have singled out here is something quite small in comparison with what can be obtained from my calculations.
Mr. Svalgaard is right when he says that there is no repetition of the cycle.
It is always the basis of 11:18 … whatever. to which add or subtract some value, and receive a longer or shorter cycles, different in intensity.
————————————————-
SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF THE SPOTLESS SUN
I saw and read this article, and nothing new in disclosure the causes of sunspots’appearances on the Sun and of the reconnecting magnetic poles, e.t.c.
I think, the science didn’t discover, to nowaday ,the causes of these phenomena on the Sun. Produced evidences don’t explain the causes of phenomena,but only give casual effects on the Sun, with which can’t determine anything in future.
I realy have mathematical conclusive evidence for majority of these phenomena.
I wrote to NASA about this problem, several times, by your experts don’t wish to accept and listen “low level”
I don’t speak enough well English, and if you wish , I can write in Serbian. It will reinforce the exchange necessary data to resolve numerous till now unsolved questions in according with Sun’s phenomena.
Glance at my several cycles which can be the causes numerous appearances :
-The shortest relevant cycle of 1.597402597 years has an intensity 683,009 units.
-The most essential of all is one of 11.18181818 years with intensity of 3832.372 uits, which is connected with period of 123 years (your diagram,too ) and relation :
11.18181818×11=123 years ,or
-cycle of 17.57142857 years –relation:
17.57142857×7=123 years
Cycle of 13630.63636363=11.18181818×1219, e.t.c.
There are yet plenty of cycles as : 1947.233766 years and cycle of 22 years (reconnecting magnetic Sun’s poles)
All of these ones change during of times, and with strong software it will get enormous spectrum of solutions.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2012 at 10:22 pm
so SC24 is losing the small spots compared to SC14. This is consistent with a L&P effect.
Do we have any quantification on the speck ratio of SC24 compared to SC23/22. Something similar to total of all individual spots/specks with a comparison of small size without penumbra, the proportion being the critical measure.
The interplay of ocean cycles (30 years warm and 30 years cool) plus solar cycles (500 years increasing activity and 500 years decreasing activity) results in latitudinal climate zone and jet stream shifting with changes in zonality/meridionality of the main jetstream tracks.
More jetstream meridionality greatly lengthens the lines of air mass mixing around the globe. More zonality greatly reduces them.
There are consequential changes in total global cloudiness and albedo which affects solar input to the oceans and skews the balance of ENSO between El Nino dominance and La Nina dominance.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 1:22 am
Do we have any quantification on the speck ratio of SC24 compared to SC23/22. Something similar to total of all individual spots/specks with a comparison of small size without penumbra, the proportion being the critical measure.
Yes, of course we do. There are several ways of doing this:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/aa18034-11-Clette.pdf
“We find that the Sun has shown an important deficit in small spots since the last activity maximum around 2000. While the number of large-scale spots remained largely unaffected, the occurrence rate of the smallest sunspots, and among them the ones with the shortest lifetimes, was more than halved during cycle 23. This explains the divergence between indices, weighted in favor of the
largest active regions/magnetic structures, and sunspot counts that do not include such a weighting. It also confirms an actual intrinsic transition in the magnetic field generation inside the Sun, arising years before the exceptional activity minimum.”
or:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Locarno-S-G-Ratio.pdf
This is a work in progress to be completed and submitted in the coming week.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:19 am
Yes, of course we do. There are several ways of doing this
Neither of those two reports address the question answered.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:19 am
That should be “question asked”
The speck ratio is crucial when dealing with any claim you and L&P might propose. The speck ratio increase during SC24 has not been in question from you and L&P until recently. Real data will be required to prove the new position.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 7:26 am
The speck ratio is crucial when dealing with any claim you and L&P might propose. The speck ratio increase during SC24 has not been in question from you and L&P until recently. Real data will be required to prove the new position.
I don’t know what your problem is. All the real data [we only have real data, not doctored LSC data] agree, and there is no ‘new’ position. See e.g. the paper by Tapping http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Tapping.pdf
“Soon after the maximum of Cycle 23, the relationship between F10.7 and sunspot number changed, with an excess of F10.7 over what we would expect on the basis of the sunspot number value. There was an increase in the short term fluctuations too. There were signs of this change in Cycles 21 and 22. Cycle 24 continues with this deviation. It could be due to decreases in the number of observed small sunspots and the resulting decreased observed short-term sunspot
activity.”
Nothing has ‘been in question until recently’. Of course, one could only talk about SC24 after it had begun. The ratio S/G [spots over groups] always shows an increase near minimum and then falls off towards maximum, as is clearly seen in the Figures of http://www.leif.org/EOS/Locarno-S-G-Ratio.pdf
Your claim that SC23 showed an excess of small spots [that you call specks] is simply not supported by real data.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 7:26 am
claim you and L&P might propose.
We do not ‘propose claims’ but just show you the observations, undoctored and without selection bias.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 18, 2012 at 8:41 am
[correction]
The ratio S/G [spots over groups] is always small near minimum and then increases towards maximum, as is clearly seen in the Figures of http://www.leif.org/EOS/Locarno-S-G-Ratio.pdf
I meant to refer to the ratio of observed spots to expected spots [Figure 3] which has a maximum at solar minimum and decreases towards maximum.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 7:16 am
Neither of those two reports address the question asked.
Possibly you didn’t express yourself clearly. By speck ratio I thought you meant the ratio between small spots and all spots, that is the fraction of all spots that are ‘specks’. A measure of ‘all spots’ or of solar activity as a whole is the number of active regions or groups, and what is found is that that ratio has been decreasing. Superposed on the decrease is a solar cycle variation of the ratio.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 7:26 am
data will be required to prove the new position.
you are right that we need data for the next several years to be sure.
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 1:22 am
Something similar to total of all individual spots/specks with a comparison of small size without penumbra, the proportion being the critical measure.
I have recounted the Locarno spots back to 2003. If your definition of ‘speck’ is a spot without penumbra, then the ratio of weighted spot count to unweighted count should be a good indicator. Spots with no penumbra have weights 1 or 2, while spots with penumbra have weights 3 to 5. So the ratio weighted/not weighted should be large if there are fewer smaller spots with no penumbra. This is what is observed: http://www.leif.org/research/Ratio-Weighted-to-Unweighted-Spot-Count.png
So, there are fewer and fewer small spots, which is what the L&P effect is.
Perhaps you define the speck ratio as the inverse ratio, I can’t tell from your question.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 18, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I have recounted the Locarno spots back to 2003. If your definition of ‘speck’ is a spot without penumbra, then the ratio of weighted spot count to unweighted count should be a good indicator. Spots with no penumbra have weights 1 or 2, while spots with penumbra have weights 3 to 5.
As long as Locarno has followed this principle your analysis is good and covers the terminology of my question. The data would need to be extended back to the start of SC22 or even further to establish if the ratio has changed since SC23 max.
In your analysis do the unweighted spots include both type 1 & type 2 spots?
How did you gather the data, did you use every daily drawing back to 2003 or some other method? It would also be interesting to see a smaller range between the data points (monthly) especially on the upslope of SC24.
Wonderful dialogue which I cannot hope to follow…but David Archibald says …
“The Earth’s atmosphere shrank 25% at the beginning of the 23/24 minimum.”
Eh, this sounds like a significant statement. Anybody want to confirm this and help me with an explanation of what the consequences of this are?
Ken Methven says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Wonderful dialogue which I cannot hope to follow…but David Archibald says …
“The Earth’s atmosphere shrank 25% at the beginning of the 23/24 minimum.”
Eh, this sounds like a significant statement. Anybody want to confirm this and help me with an explanation of what the consequences of this are?
____________________________________
Check out this NASA page for the explanation: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/
Geoff Sharp says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:13 pm
As long as Locarno has followed this principle your analysis is good and covers the terminology of my question. The data would need to be extended back to the start of SC22 or even further to establish if the ratio has changed since SC23 max.
Locarno is basically done by one man, Sergio Cortesi, with help recently by Marco Cagnotti. Comparisons show that Marco follow Sergio very closely. Figure 2 of my analysis shows that the ratio has been constant 1947-1995.
In your analysis do the unweighted spots include both type 1 & type 2 spots?
The unweighted spots are all spots
How did you gather the data, did you use every daily drawing back to 2003 or some other method? It would also be interesting to see a smaller range between the data points (monthly) especially on the upslope of SC24.
Daily drawings are available back to 1981: http://www.specola.ch/e/drawings.html
You can count yourself. It is mostly straightforward, as I show here: http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf slides 12-18 or here: http://www.leif.org/research/Effect-of-Weighting-on-SSN.pdf .
I don’t know what you hope to see. The demise of small spots without penumbrae is so robust that it also shows on monthly counts, especially on the upslope of SC24: http://www.leif.org/research/Ratio-Weighted-to-Unweighted-Spot-Count-Monthly.png
Ken Methven says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:41 pm
“The Earth’s atmosphere shrank 25% at the beginning of the 23/24 minimum.”
Eh, this sounds like a significant statement.
But is a bit misleading as most of Archibald’s statements. It it the upper [100 miles and up], extremely thin [one trillionth of the mass] part of the atmosphere that has contracted. Does not mean that the air down where we are has ‘shrunk’.