NOAA SWPC has updated their plot page of solar metrics, and the slump continues.
At spaceweather.com Dr. Tony Phillips writes:
SO THIS IS SOLAR MAXIMUM? Forecasters have long expected the Solar Max of 2013 to be the weakest of the Space Age. It might be even weaker than they thought. As shown in this 20-year plot of sunspot counts vs. time, the sun is underperforming:
Sunspot numbers are notoriously variable, so the actual counts could rapidly rise to meet or exceed the predicted curve. For now, however, the face of the sun is devoid of large sunspots, and there have been no strong flares in more than a week. The threshold of Solar Max looks a lot like Solar Min. NOAA forecasters estimate no more than a 1% chance of X-class solar flares in the next 24 hours.
===================================================
Here’s the other metrics, which are also “underperforming”.
The Ap magnetic proxy for the solar magnetic activity also continues weak, never having recovered from the step change seen in October 2005.
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project722 says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:17 am
So what is NASA showing us on the ISWA website
Give the full URL, please
Gail
“That is why I laugh at the Climastrologists who say they KNOW what is causing climate variations.”
Then you are laughing at the sun nuts. You will be hard pressed to find any climate scientist who claims to KNOW what causes climate variations. Just read the IPCC. You will see frank admissions of wiggles that are not currently explained. Are gross trends explained. Yes. Do they claim to know what causes every variation? Nope. You have to read the curve fitting solar nuts to see that kind of hubris. And evern there they only attempt to explain the least important system characteristic: Surface Air Temperature. or on occasion they will explain the odd river level or lake level in the cherry picked case of the week
Since the solar activity is plainly magnetic end electric phenomenon taking place in the solar plasma, that the electric and magnetic forces rather than weak gravitation are likely primary causes.
Magnetic clouds (ropes) are magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun constituting closed electric and closed magnetic circuits.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=910
Electrons are counter streaming in both directions, but in different layers. Although arithmetic sum of currents may be zero, because of layering there is still bi-directional electric current flow
R.P. LEPPING, from Laboratory for Solar and Space Physics NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, claims: MCs (magnetic clouds) are 1/4AU in diameter (at the earth’s orbit-rem.mv), … have axial fluxes of 10^21Mx and carry a total axial current (IT ) of about a billion amps.
http://wwwppd.nrl.navy.mil/prediction/cloud_movie.gif
Magnetic cloud spreads out through the heliosphere, engulfing planetary magnetospheres.
It is possible that most of energy is carried by the magnetic field, which is occasionally short-circuited by planetary magnetospheres (reconnection), when energy is released, and the magnetic loop interrupted.
and since it is a close magnetic circuit, the interruption will be registered ad the source (solar surface) hence a planetary magnetic feedback.
vukcevic says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
It is possible that most of energy is carried by the magnetic field, which is occasionally short-circuited by planetary magnetospheres (reconnection), when energy is released, and the magnetic loop interrupted. and since it is a close magnetic circuit, the interruption will be registered ad the source (solar surface) hence a planetary magnetic feedback.
An electric engineer should know that this is nonsense. There are no ‘magnetic circuits’ to be short-circuited. Any change in the magnetic configuration is carried downstream [away from the Sun] at ten times the speed by which magnetic changes can propagate upstream [the Alfven speed]. Your learning disability shows itself again. Dunning-Kruger were right.
Ray
“Ray: I look at things from a cycles perspective because I find that it exposes new understanding. When very long term data is available, the need for Leprechauns is greatly diminished because statistics give us bounds within which correlation should fall. I would say that as far as 1 goes, there can be natural oscillations of Earth’s climate system including ocean movements etc. Regarding 2, there are heaps of other solar measurements than just TSI. They often have their own peculiar fluctuations, but nearly always cycles are present. Cycles are a great method to work out cause and effect chains because, like fingerprints, they leave their mark as a set of frequencies. Provided of course that you have enough data to measure the frequencies accurately. then the Leprechauns are not needed.”
Ray. The cycle IS the leprechaun. They merely come in different colors. You miss the point of confirmation bias and data snooping entirely. Yes there are many solar measurements. In fact, there are an infinite number of solar measurements. That is, an infinite number of ways of characterizing observations and combining them. It is necessarily the case that if you look hard enough and long enough you will find a cycle. And if you don’t there are any manner of ways you can fool yourself mathematically to create them ex nihilo. And, as you know, there are an infinite number of ways of measuring the climate. Correlation, even long term correlation, is easy to find. In fact you must find it.
That is the fundamental problem with data driven approaches. All data confesses. If it doesnt, transform it. Shift it. add a constant, take the reciprocal, you’ll find the cycle. You have to.
The test comes when you actually have to put together a physical theory that predicts phenomena not used to construct your system.
Let’s take Scaffeta as an example. After a modest amount of fiddling we have a ‘theory’ ( a curve fit) that explains global air temperature. Fine. What’s that “theory” say about ENSO. opps. nothing.
It says nothing because its not a physical theory about the climate, its an exercise in cyclomania. That disease is addictive because one can always find the drug. Put another way, the philosophy that there are cycles in everything is metaphysics. Pure and simple non falsifiable metaphysics. It’s exactly the kind of nonsense that popper tried to banish from science. But nostradamus lives and he worships the sun. It explains everything and therefore nothing.
vukcevic says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
carry a total axial current (IT ) of about a billion amps.
A single small sunspot the size of the Earth across carries a current of the order of 1000 billion amps.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
November 8, 2012 at 2:27 pm
From Jim G on November 8, 2012 at 12:19 pm:
In reality gravitational lensing allows us to see the movement of distant objects, that movement is too rapid/and or the wrong direction to be explained…
“I was unaware the distant specks were moving fast enough behind other distant specks and blobs for actual movement to be detected during the incredibly brief time we’ve had good enough instruments for acceptably precise observations, that is traversing movement, not the towards/away-from us detected by Doppler shift. Last I noticed, we’re still finding out previously identified stars are actually clusters and whole galaxies.”
Since the theoretical dark matter is by definition dark, the only thing that can actually be seen is the supposed gravitational effects of the supposed dark matter which cause movement. The mass and location of the supposed dark matter are then inferred by those supposed gravitational effects.
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:24 am
Since the theoretical dark matter is by definition dark, the only thing that can actually be seen is the supposed gravitational effects of the supposed dark matter which cause movement. The mass and location of the supposed dark matter are then inferred by those supposed gravitational effects.
That is how the supposed planet Neptune was detected in 1846.
vukcevic says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
carry a total axial current (IT ) of about a billion amps.
A characteristic of a competent engineer is the ability to intuitively have a feel for proportion and sizing, not proposing using a single strand of knitting yarn to hold up a suspension bridge.
Even if a planet could disrupt that current and even if you somehow by magic could feed that disruption back to the Sun it is many orders of magnitude too small to have any significant effect.
Let us make a more precise calculation, starting with this:
Osherovich, V. A.; Garcia, H. A.
Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 17, Nov. 1990, p. 2273-2276.
The return flux (RF) sunspot model is applied to a round, unipolar sunspot observed by H. Kawakami (1983). Solving the magnetohydrostatic problem using the gas pressure deficit between the umbral and quiet-sun atmospheres as a source function, a distribution of electric current density in an untwisted, unipolar sunspot as a function of height and radial distance from the sunspot center is observed. Maximum electric current density is about 32 mA/sq m at the bottom of the sunspot.
Take the radius of the spot to be 10,000 km, then its area is 3×10^14 sqm. That area times the current density 32×10^-3 A gives a current of 10^13 = 10,000 billion amps and this is for a quiet spot. An active spot that gives rise to CMEs has a current many times larger, so your proposed mechanism is five orders of magnitudes too weak.
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:24 am
Since the theoretical dark matter is by definition dark, the only thing that can actually be seen is the supposed gravitational effects
Educate yourself a bit about gravitational effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:23 am
project722 says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:17 am
So what is NASA showing us on the ISWA website
Give the full URL, please
http://iswa.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/IswaSystemWebApp/
This should take you the the list of available cygnets. Go to page 10 under the solar tab, select the 1st or second on the left called “Earth-Sun Connectivity”. Hover over the image to get a description of what the cygnet does. In short this shows our magnetic footprint on the Sun. If you look currently our magnetic footprint is on the backside of the Sun.
Then on the same page to the right you will see another cygnet called “Earth Magnetic Connectivity WSA ENLIL Gong.” Hover over image for description. This shows you field lines that Earth has and what their current location is on the Suns corona where its originating.
I believe these 2 cygnets are supposed to work in conjunction, according to their description. And if you are correct these may be the flux ropes we have been talking about.
Leif Svalgaard says:
…….
You are trying to confound the readers by referring to the solar wind.
Magnetic clouds are only present in a subset of observed interplanetary coronal mass ejections.
i.e. it is not same as the common ‘garden’ solar wind.
Magnetic cloud has closed magnetic field i.e. the magnetic loops that are rooted at both ends in the Sun
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=910
Even if a planet could disrupt that current and even if you somehow by magic could feed that disruption back to the Sun
No need for magic, here is simple analogy: an ordinary magnetic needle of a compass has magnetic loops that are rooted at both of its ends, do a simple test by interrupting the magnetic field loops by a piece of iron and observe the ‘feedback’
it is many orders of magnitude too small to have any significant effect.
Although only a small amount of energy is involved at any time, effect is cumulative increasing CMEs’
frequency and strength.
Alternatively, sun may have natural resonance which has a harmonic component in the region of 11 years.
Heard of platoon of soldiers marching on a bridge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angers_Bridge
The sun is doing exactly what can be predicted from the data
\
for the following 8 years we are at the maximum cooling rate
After that we will start climbing a bit again
until it starts warming again
from around 2038
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Have a nice global cooling!!
although I am sure there will be enough idiots who believe the cooling (“climate change”) could be due to human activities.
project722 says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
In short this shows our magnetic footprint on the Sun.
No, those are not the ‘feet’ of the flux ropes, but instead the feet of the ‘open’ field lines: field lines of one polarity that start at the sun and stretch out into space. What normally are called the ‘flux ropes’ are closed loops like this one http://www.leif.org/research/Flux-Rope-Near-Sun.png
As the loop is dragged out to the Earth and beyond, its stays connected to its feet, until at some distance further out, perhaps past Mars, the connection is finally broken and the ‘loop’ becomes a ‘cloud’. For some loops the connection can break much earlier and they become clouds much closer. This is all very dynamic.
vukcevic says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:47 am
Magnetic clouds are only present in a subset of observed interplanetary coronal mass ejections.
So are rare and have even less effect
No need for magic, here is simple analogy: an ordinary magnetic needle of a compass has magnetic loops that are rooted at both of its ends, do a simple test by interrupting the magnetic field loops by a piece of iron and observe the ‘feedback’
Try that in a plasma. The analogy fails because the solar wind/magnetic cloud is not a vacuum [or non-conductor like air]. Alfven showed that in 1942 and got a Nobel prize for it.
Although only a small amount of energy is involved at any time, effect is cumulative increasing CMEs’ frequency and strength.
First of all, you can’t get it back to the sun. Second, as the sunspot dies there is no cumulative effect.
Heard of platoon of soldiers marching on a bridge?
It is more like an ant on the bridge.
But, again, you refuse to learn. Don’t be such a bad example to your children.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:02 pm
project722 says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
In short this shows our magnetic footprint on the Sun.
No, those are not the ‘feet’ of the flux ropes, but instead the feet of the ‘open’ field lines: field lines of one polarity that start at the sun and stretch out into space. What normally are called the ‘flux ropes’ are closed loops like this one http://www.leif.org/research/Flux-Rope-Near-Sun.png
As the loop is dragged out to the Earth and beyond, its stays connected to its feet, until at some distance further out, perhaps past Mars, the connection is finally broken and the ‘loop’ becomes a ‘cloud’. For some loops the connection can break much earlier and they become clouds much closer. This is all very dynamic.
I understand about open field lines. Clearly though the NASA app says otherwise and shows instead the magnetic field lines connectivity from the sun that terminate on earth. It says “This plot shows the magnetic connection points from the earth onto the suns surface/corona”. These look like open field lines from the Sun that have a connecting layer on the earth. So if they are not the flux ropes or portals, what are they besides just regular magnetic field lines and what purpose do they serve?
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:10 pm
“Educate yourself a bit about gravitational effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens”
You obviously did not read completely and/or completely understand what I wrote. If you are going refer folks to a site on the subject, wikipedia is notoriously poor, as anyone can edit it. Here is one, of many others, you might consider http://astro.berkeley.edu/~jcohn/lens.html.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:39 am
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:24 am
“Since the theoretical dark matter is by definition dark, the only thing that can actually be seen is the supposed gravitational effects of the supposed dark matter which cause movement. The mass and location of the supposed dark matter are then inferred by those supposed gravitational effects.
That is how the supposed planet Neptune was detected in 1846.”
Yes, but since then, if you have not heard, we have actually observed it directly, not so for dark matter.
Leif Svalgaard says (November 9, 2012 at 8:34 am):
Ray Tomes says:
Because solar proxies (both C14 and Be10) show the 208 year cycle for about 10,000 years.
Leif: No, they show that sometimes there are hints of a 200-yr cycle, but most of the time there are not.
Actually, the analysis of the entire records show a significant cycle throughout. For Be10 the significance is p<0.0002 and for C14 there are two peaks with significance of p of 0.05 and 0.02. These are according to Bartels test which looks for common phase and amplitude of the cycle on each cycle period occurrence. At these levels the test is failed that the phase and amplitude are random scatter about zero. In Be10 we can say that this is surely a real cycle.
The two significant components for C14 does explain why your chart shows the cycle appears as present sometimes only, and that is because of the beats between these components. This is no different than saying that Sodium emits in the yellow part of the spectrum. Further analysis shows two lines in the spectrum so Sodium's yellow is not there much of the time.
In general all cycles show modulation. This is to be expected when you think about it, because there are always other forces at work than the simple oscillation. I have found that often the modulation period is matched to other known cycles. In this case the C14 modulation period is close to the 2300 year reported cycle in many related phenomena. Because only about 4 cycles of that longer cycle are present we cannot be definitive about that conclusion.
project722 says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:36 pm
I understand about open field lines. Clearly though the NASA app says otherwise and shows instead the magnetic field lines connectivity from the sun that terminate on earth.
It was an open field line until it encountered the Earth.NASA does not say otherwise.
So if they are not the flux ropes or portals, what are they besides just regular magnetic field lines
They are just ‘regular field lines’ with the property that an electron shot out along one at the sun will not return to the sun, but get lost somewhere in interstellar space. In a sense that is a useful definition of an ‘open field line’, because strictly speaking there are no ‘open’ field lines.
and what purpose do they serve?
Nature does have ‘purpose’.
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:37 pm
You obviously did not read completely and/or completely understand what I wrote.
I don’t think you wrote anything that was amenable to understanding. Wikipedia and the site you mentioned do not disagree [and I do also know something about this].
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:40 pm
”That is how the supposed planet Neptune was detected in 1846.”
Yes, but since then, if you have not heard, we have actually observed it directly, not so for dark matter.
Snide remarks [“if you have not heard”] reflect badly on you. Dark matter enjoys the same situation as Neptune did between the time its position was calculated and the time it was observed. No difference, except observation is a bit harder for DM, but there are serious experiments aimed at that goal.
Ray Tomes says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:49 pm
I have found that often the modulation period is matched to other known cycles.
Clearly, cyclomania cannot be rationally discussed as it seems to be an article of faith for believers.
Ray Tomes says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:49 pm
I have found that often the modulation period is matched to other known cycles.
Clearly, cyclomania cannot be rationally discussed as it seems to be an article of faith for believers.
That said, the intermittent cycle do contribute to the power spectrum:
http://www.leif.org/research/10Be-FFT.png
There are many other peaks and people find them correlated with planets, climate, and whatnot.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:10 pm
……………
Now you should have said:
“the Earth has a magnetosphere, why don’t we see one year cycles?”
We do but 400 days one. The Earth’s magnetosphere gets in the way of Jupiter’s every 1.0928 years, and the most SS cycles show this interference, particular at the stronger part of the normal sunspot cycle. Transition is short about (one month or so) few CMEs are required to show the effect:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Sub-cycle.htm
p.s. Children have grown up so I can fool around.
Leif Svalgaard says
“Snide remarks [“if you have not heard”] reflect badly on you.”
Leif, I can’t believe you said that. You, the King of snide remarks, you surely certainly do not seem to be able to take what you dish out! Aside from that, dark matter has yet to be directly observed and is a matter of theory, or in some cases, dogmatic belief.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:19 pm
There are many other peaks and people find them correlated with planets, climate, and whatnot.
A good way to see how stationary the patter is, is to split that data into subsets and see how the peaks fare: http://www.leif.org/research/10Be-FFT-Subsets.png
Now the peaks don’t look too hot [to me at least]. You can do other subsets or a sliding window subset scheme, etc, and people do this and find all kinds of fascinating things. None of which is compelling.
vukcevic says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:29 pm
“the Earth has a magnetosphere, why don’t we see one year cycles?”
For the same reason that the other magnetospheres don’t produce cycles: magnetic and electric influence can’t travel upstream fast enough. They are all swept away by the supersonic solar wind.
Children have grown up so I can fool around
No reason to make a fool of yourself in public, though.
Jim G says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:35 pm
you surely certainly do not seem to be able to take what you dish out!
No need to stoop to my level.
Aside from that, dark matter … is a matter of theory, or in some cases, dogmatic belief.
Or in some cases dogmatic disbelief. About theory:
“A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment”