The December data from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is in, and it looks more and more like the peak of solar cycle 24 has been reached, and that we are now past it. Even with documented problems like “sunspot count inflation” the sunspot count for December is quite low:
![sunspot[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/sunspot1.gif)
Note the large difference between the prediction line in red, and the counts. There are other indications that our sun remains in a slump.
The 10.7cm solar radio flux seems to have peaked also.
![f10[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/f101.gif)
And, the Ap solar geomagnetic index has dropped to its observed second lowest value again (for recent years), which last happened in November 2011:
![Ap[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ap1.gif)
Dr. David Hathaway updated his forecast recently. Here is the plot:
![ssn_predict_l[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ssn_predict_l1.gif)
He thinks it will be the fall of 2013 though before the peak is reached
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in the Fall of 2013. The smoothed sunspot number has already reached 67 (in February 2012)due to the strong peak in late 2011 so the official maximum will be at least this high and this late. We are currently over four years into Cycle 24. The current predicted and observed size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle since Cycle 14 which had a maximum of 64.2 in February of 1906.
The prediction method has been slightly revised. The previous method found a fit for both the amplitude and the starting time of the cycle along with a weighted estimate of the amplitude from precursor predictions (polar fields and geomagnetic activity near cycle minimum). Recent work [see Hathaway Solar Physics; 273, 221 (2011)] indicates that the equatorward drift of the sunspot latitudes as seen in the Butterfly Diagram follows a standard path for all cycles provided the dates are taken relative to a starting time determined by fitting the full cycle. Using data for the current sunspot cycle indicates a starting date of May of 2008. Fixing this date and then finding the cycle amplitude that best fits the sunspot number data yields the current (revised) prediction.
Perhaps, the sun right now seems to be having a spot resurgence:
![latest_512_4500[2]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/latest_512_45002.jpg?quality=83)
In other news, Dr. Svalgaard’s plot:
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
…looks like it is getting ready to flip, suggesting the peak of Cycle 24 is imminent if not already past.
His predictions for cycle 24 are looking better and better.
vukcevic says:
January 11, 2013 at 9:55 am
I am more than happy to take seriously and fully consider your points on the matter of science detail
You have been unwilling and unable to do so in the past and as far as I can see are totally impervious to learning and education.
do not have any traction with me, and do undermine strength of your argument, the effect is exactly opposite to what you intended.
I don’t think any arguments will have traction with you. I have tried hard, but to no avail.
The ‘spurious’, ‘DK-effect’, etc are my best assessment of you and your ‘work’. In keeping with the DK-effect, you may chose to disregard this, but that only underscores my point.
Your ideas are nonsense and pseudo-science.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“If you fervently believe in Sun-Weather-Climate relations depending on or driven by all those, small, potential variables,”
I do not “fervently believe” in much of anything in the realm of science, but keep my mind open to alternative possibilities, even when they are not a part of the concensus views of the time. Fervent belief is for religous concepts which are faith based in any event. Perhaps you should keep this in mind. Also, I do not consider oceanic cycles and their changes, just one of those to which I referred, as “small” variables in the scheme of weather or climate.
Dr.S. Let’s stick to the science.
On page 13 of my article is the link to the source of the data, where I described how dF(t) is calculated, and then the spectral components found. The above can be repeated in less than 5 min.
When you quote what spectral components you have found, I am happy to continue, else you wish to suppress what is in the data, for reasons known to yourself, but may be only guessed by the rest.
Jim G says:
January 11, 2013 at 11:51 am
Also, I do not consider oceanic cycles and their changes, just one of those to which I referred, as “small” variables in the scheme of weather or climate.
If you are not specific your claims cannot be evaluated.
vukcevic says:
January 11, 2013 at 11:55 am
Let’s stick to the science.
what you do is not science.
When you quote what spectral components you have found, I am happy to continue, else you wish to suppress what is in the data, for reasons known to yourself, but may be only guessed by the rest.
We have discussed this before. There is not enough data on which to base your analysis for the locations you use.
Strength of the magnetosphere is determined mainly by two factors (but do expand if you wish): strength of the Earth’s dynamo and strength of the heliospheric mf at the E’s orbit.
The strength of the heliospheric magnetic field does not have the cycle you peddle:
http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-B-FFT.png
So end of that discussion.
Leif Svalgaard says
Beyond that, (i.e. 0.1 % per 11 years solar cycle), I don’t think any mechanisms or variations have been established.
Henry says
Rubbish!!
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-201
HenryP says:
January 11, 2013 at 2:41 pm
Rubbish!!
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-201
Aren’t you little too hard on yourself with that characterization of your blog?
Does anyone know a web site that gives the temperatures in Greenland where they take the ice cores? When the temperature goes 20 degrees C lower we will know the ice age is here. They are going to depopulate the earth anyway. And I seem to be everyones favorite so I’ll go first.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 11, 2013 at 12:52 pm
…………..
So end of that discussion.
Oh, no it is not.
Aa index clearly picks up 16 year, and Ap 22 year components
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Specs.gif
I don’t have your HMF B data, how is measured, not one of your products?
I would like to take a look at it myself.
Hannes Alfven was a good friend of mine and he would rotate in his grave by being associated with EU.
Don’t think so, he prefered it to the big bang model, which he likened to creationism.
He was partly wrong on this. The aurora is due to electric currents in the near-Earth’s environment.
Yes I know how it works, and birkland got it broadly correct at the time. After 50 years of dismissing his idea, and then seeing he was correct, the establishment contented itself by saying he was wrong by picking holes in the detail once the key predictions had been confirmed.
The solar wind is electrically neutral to a very high degree
Or in other words, it is not neutral, it has a small electrical charge. Further, this small charge is not due to some minor , insignificant technicality, it’s an effect of the sun being primarily electrical in function and nature.
In fact the solar wind is all any layperson needs to confound even the best read non-electrical- sun believers like yourself. The solar wind accelerates away from the sun because the sun is electrically charged, creating an heliocentric electric field, which accelerates the charged solar wind away from the sun. Using an electric model of the sun, George Fitzgerald predicted this back in the 19th century! The establishment ignored his solar wind idea. When the solar wind was confirmed in 1959, they still ignored Fitzgerald’s prediction.To this day, non-electric sun believers conjure up mad, radical complicated mathematical models to explain the acceleration of the solar wind, and then use emperor’s new cloths arguments against those who don’t like their mad models and simply use high-school level electrostatics. No such mad maths theory has gained general acceptance, and the problem is consider unsolved by the establishment. Occam’s razor is violated to sustain establishment solar theory. Alfven wrote a paper in 1970 to explain what was happening which essentially repeated what Fitzgerald said 100 years earlier – the sun is charged and so is the solar wind. The establishment ignored Alfven’s paper.
If the solar wind would have an excess of one charge over the other, the sun would build up an an enormous amount of the other charge, and very strong electric attraction between opposite charges would prevent any further solar wind from escaping the Sun.
A naive person contemplating a live DC electric wire might wonder the same point…” isnt a tremendous electrical charge building up at the other end of this wire that supplies all this charge? ”
The problem is resolved when you consider the electric circuit. The sun has an electric circuit too. Charge goes in at the poles of the sun and comes out everywhere else but more around the equator. Didn’t Alfven draw us a nice diagram of the solar circuit and also one for galaxies? maybe you wouldn’t know because the establishment mostly ignored his application of electrical theory to space science.
But here is not the place to talk about EU. We have already done that on WUWT more than the subject is worth
Isn’t it?
You’d rather spend another 5 years telling vukcevic he’s wrong. Good for you. Thats what you’ve spent most of your last 5 years on WUWT and solarham.com doing.
vukcevic says:
January 11, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Aa index clearly picks up 16 year, and Ap 22 year components
As aa and ap measure exactly the same thing, their spectra should be identical. If they are not, you pick up spurious noise.
I don’t have your HMF B data, how is measured, not one of your products?
I would like to take a look at it myself.
Of course it is one of mine. You can learn about it here:
http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf building on an earlier paper
http://www.leif.org/research/The%20IDV%20index%20-%20its%20derivation%20and%20use.pdf
meemoe_uk says:
January 11, 2013 at 7:39 pm
Don’t think so, he preferred it to the big bang model
You are regurgitating a myth. And, BTW, most people did that until the Cosmic Microwave Radiation changed all that.
Yes I know how it works, and Birkeland got it broadly correct at the time.
He was very wrong the first time, thinking that the electric current came from the Sun. It doesn’t.
That there are electric currents generated in the upper atmosphere was clear already in the 1889s, and was not original with Birkeland.
The solar wind is electrically neutral to a very high degree
Or in other words, it is not neutral, it has a small electrical charge.
The deviations from strict neutrality are local and fluctuating over small distances.
The solar wind accelerates away from the sun because the sun is electrically charged, creating an heliocentric electric field, which accelerates the charged solar wind away from the sun.
Of course not. That is 19th century misconception as you so proudly agree with: “George Fitzgerald predicted this back in the 19th century”
The problem is resolved when you consider the electric circuit. The sun has an electric circuit too. Charge goes in at the poles of the sun and comes out everywhere else but more around the equator. Didn’t Alfven draw us a nice diagram of the solar circuit and also one for galaxies?
Alfven’s diagram is very wrong. And as I told you, he was a good and personal friend of mine and we have often discussed this.
“But here is not the place to talk about EU. We have already done that on WUWT more than the subject is worth” Isn’t it?
No, it isn’t. Go to http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html and educate yourself.
You’d rather spend another 5 years telling vukcevic he’s wrong.
Vuk is a particular sad case of a learning disability which is beyond hope. I hope for you that you do not have a similar affliction.
Leif says
Aren’t you little too hard on yourself with that characterization of your blog?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-201
Henry@Leif
IIn sulting people shows poor character. Thanks for the comment anyway, it may get more people to have a look at what has been written.
You must be desperate – somehow – to now having to deny that the 88 year Gleisberg solar cycle exists,
seeing that is caused modern warming and will now cause global cooling.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 11, 2013 at 9:28 pm
……
Yes, you are correct, I was using Aa (raw 1860) data and Ap (1845), there is a small discrepancy due to possibly more uncertainty with the earlier data. Since the Earth data only goes to 1990, I have re-plotted Earth and Ap and their spectra as shown in here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Specs.htm
Note the time axis displacement between the Ap and the Earth.
Your paper doesn’t mention Ap index, I would expect your HMF-B data to correlate with Ap index. I shall look into it.
vukcevic says:
January 12, 2013 at 5:04 am
Your paper doesn’t mention Ap index, I would expect your HMF-B data to correlate with Ap index. I shall look into it.
It doesn’t mention Ap because the heliospheric magnetic field B is not the main variable that determines Ap. Ap is mostly determined by the solar wind speed V. The following relationship exists: Ap ~ BV^2. Furthermore Ap is a poor index for global geomagnetic activity as Ap is almost exclusively derived from Northern Hemisphere data [for historical reasons].
HenryP says:
January 12, 2013 at 1:14 am
deny that the 88 year Gleissberg solar cycle exists
Except that the ‘cycle’ the past 300 years has been more like 105 years, not 88:
http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-SSN-1700-2013.png
P.S. added the HMF-B 1880-1990 Svalgaard (2010 paper) spectrum
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Specs.htm
vukcevic says:
January 12, 2013 at 6:58 am
P.S. added the HMF-B 1880-1990 Svalgaard (2010 paper) spectrum
You should use all the data, not cherry-pick selected intervals.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 12, 2013 at 7:27 am
should use all the data, not cherry-pick selected intervals.
No, I don’t agree, solar cycles periods vary in length, so if the Ap and the Earth magnetic field are related than spectrum should be calculated only for the common period where data is available for both (the Earth data is available only to 1990).
100 year period is more than sufficient to establish periods below 25 years of length.
If you don’t like the result then your theory is a bit shaky (as is your spectrum analyser)
You will find that Ap ~ 3.1*(HMF B)-6 is a very good match.
BTW. Tnx for previous remarks regarding spectrum, the new result is more convincing.
Svalgaard Spectrum: http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-B-FFT.png
Vukcevic spectrum: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Specs.htm
vukcevic says:
January 12, 2013 at 8:38 am
No, I don’t agree, solar cycles periods vary in length, so if the Ap and the Earth magnetic field are related than spectrum should be calculated only for the common period where data is available for both
You start Earth in 1860 and the other ones in 1880…
Plus you shift the data by 8 years. Lots of massaging going on the arrive at the desired result…
You will find that Ap ~ 3.1*(HMF B)-6 is a very good match.
No, that is wiggle matching. Ap is dominated by solar wind speed and not B.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Jim G says:
January 11, 2013 at 11:51 am
Also, I do not consider oceanic cycles and their changes, just one of those to which I referred, as “small” variables in the scheme of weather or climate.
“If you are not specific your claims cannot be evaluated.”
Have you never heard of the north/south ocean conveyor or El Niño or La Niña ?
vukcevic says:
January 12, 2013 at 8:38 am
Earth magnetic field
I thought you were not using the Earth’s magnetic field, but the secular variation of same. Describe how you compute ‘Earth’.
Jim G says:
January 12, 2013 at 9:33 am
Have you never heard of the north/south ocean conveyor or El Niño or La Niña ?
none of which are driven by solar activity.
Leif Svalgaard says:
January 12, 2013 at 10:06 am
Jim G says:
January 12, 2013 at 9:33 am
“Have you never heard of the north/south ocean conveyor or El Niño or La Niña ?
none of which are driven by solar activity.”
I never said they were, though there are those who would disagree with you on that. What I said was that they, among other variables, could mitigate any time line comparisons between temperature and solar cycles causing the lack of correlation you pointed out for solar cycle 24 and temperature compared to solar cycle 14 and temperature.
Jim G says:
January 12, 2013 at 1:16 pm
they, among other variables, could mitigate any time line comparisons
‘could’? first show that they actually do. You make the assumption that there MUST be a causal connection, and anything that comes in the way of showing that ‘could’ be due to mitigating effects that louse up the comparisons.
Leif says
Except that the ‘cycle’ the past 300 years has been more like 105 years, not 88:
http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-SSN-1700-2013.png
Henry says
Interesting. It seems to me the observed cycle as determined by me from the odd 650000 daily data (MAXIMA) is indeed 88 years or close to that, but it could be a combination of effects from the (obvious) 55 year cycle and the 105 year cycle, which would enforce its cumulative relative strength.
Either way, it seems to lead to a clear 80 – 100 year weather cycle:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-192
I am happy you agree with me that there is more going on than what you claimed in your earlier posts.
Hence we are cooling, while ozone and other are increasing.
HenryP says:
January 12, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Interesting. It seems to me the observed cycle as determined by me from the odd 650000 daily data (MAXIMA) is indeed 88 years […]
Either way, it seems to lead to a clear 80 – 100 year weather cycle
But since there is no corresponding solar cycle, whatever you claim is not due to the sun, obviously.
I am happy you agree with me that there is more going on than what you claimed in your earlier posts.
Of course not, see just above.
Hence we are cooling, while ozone and other are increasing.
Ozone is increasing because we are not putting out more CF gases.