The data from SWPC is in, and it is lethargic at best. Sunspot numbers took a hit, down to about 42, a delta of ~50 lower compared to the red prediction line.
10.7 cm solar radio flux took a similar hit:
The Ap Geomagnetic index was up slightly, but still anemic….
And the most interesting indicator, the plot of solar polar fields, shows a clear zero line crossing, suggesting that Solar max has been reached:
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
Image from Dr. Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at sourceThough in spite of that, NASA is now suggesting a “double peak”:
Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?
Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, but solar activity is much lower than expected. At least one leading forecaster expects the sun to rebound with a double-peaked maximum later this year.
The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation:
“This is solar maximum,” he suggests. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked.”
Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, Solar Max brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.
Reality, however, is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. For one thing, the back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete; also, the amplitude of the cycle varies. Some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong.
Pesnell notes yet another complication: “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.” Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years.
The same thing could be happening now. Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,” he predicts.
Another curiosity of the solar cycle is that the sun’s hemispheres do not always peak at the same time. In the current cycle, the south has been lagging behind the north. The second peak, if it occurs, will likely feature the southern hemisphere playing catch-up, with a surge in activity south of the sun’s equator.
Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. At the time, the sun was experiencing its deepest minimum in nearly a hundred years. Sunspot numbers were pegged near zero and x-ray flare activity flat-lined for months at a time. Recognizing that deep minima are often followed by weak maxima, and pulling together many other threads of predictive evidence, the panel issued this statement:
“The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013. Note, this is not a unanimous decision, but a supermajority of the panel did agree.”
Given the tepid state of solar activity in Feb. 2013, a maximum in May now seems unlikely.
“We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak,” comments Pesnell.
Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are in fact twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”
No one knows for sure what the sun will do next. It seems likely, though, that the end of 2013 could be a lot livelier than the beginning.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips |
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lsvalgaard says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:00 pm
….
Thanks for the links and the clear explanation. I’ll do some more reading.
lsvalgaard says:
“There were 7 cycles 1605-1687, but we do not know how many cycles there were between 1687 and 1820. It could be two, three, or four. And if we knew the number of cycles we could calculate the precise average length during that period, so that IS clearly the issue. Now what average length would you like to see?”
My point was that there should be 9 cycles from 1605 to 1705. If you want a precise average, check the Ju-Ea-Ve syzygy cycles over a couple of thousands years.
“And 1705 is also uncertain [again: no data].”
The observations say SSN 50 centered at 1705:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/ANCIENT_DATA/earlyssn.dat
Ulric Lyons says:
March 10, 2013 at 3:50 am
My point was that there should be 9 cycles from 1605 to 1705.
How many cycles should there have been 1605-1687? This is a better question as we know the answer [seven].
“And 1705 is also uncertain [again: no data].”
The observations say SSN 50 centered at 1705:
The Group Sunspot Number says 5.5 so that there is such a large discrepancy shows how uncertain the data is. ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/GROUP_SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/yearrg.dat
1690 .0
1691 .0
1692 .0
1693 .0
1694 .0
1695 .1
1696 .0
1697 .0
1698 .0
1699 .0
1700 .4
1701 .5
1702 .6
1703 2.7
1704 4.1
1705 5.5
1706 3.2
1707 5.3
1708 2.8
1709 1.6
1710 .4
1711 .0
1712 .0
vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pm
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?
lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 7:10 am
“The Group Sunspot Number says 5.5..”
Again indicating a maximum at 1705. I’ll take it that there were two cycles from ~1685 to 1705 like there should be.
Hi doc
Since you ask, here it is, whole story (it is a good entertainment if you whish to verify results). This was just as an exercise done more than 2 years ago. There was a prolong WUWT discussion between Dr.S and gravitation planetarists about the SC minima and various alignment. In my formula ( if electro and magnetic feedback has any chance, none I hear you say, fine with me) there are two factors, Jupiter’s orbit and J/S synodic period.
Since astronomic J/S alignment doesn’t work, the test was to see what would happen if both J and S are linked with same trajectory of the Parker spiral, since J is always on one.
Nasa, fortunately produced animation of the Spiral going to 10 AU, from its composition it was obvious that the heliocentric angle between two planets to be positioned on the same leg of the spiral is always greater than 180 and less than 540 degrees (ie more than half a circle and less than 1.5 circle), allowing for large astronomical displacement for, let’s call it, Parker spiral ‘conjunction’.
Result was a bit of surprise, if you whish call it coincidence, but I have no idea what physical meaning might be if any (so no need for a brutal put-down). It was very laborious effort, so I only did 1800-2010.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/J-S-angle.htm
For calculation of the angular displacement I used
http://www.skyviewcafe.com/skyview.php?version=4
‘Orbits’ tab, ‘Options’ out to Saturn, select time of a SC minimum place cursor on J and S, note heliocentric longitude, calculate angular difference, considering that the spiral has to encounter J first than S.
Result:
1810.4 …..6 ….213
1823.3 ….7 ….392
1833.9 ….8 ….209
1843.5 ….9 ….403
1856.0 ….10 ….261
1867.2 ….11 ….446
1878.9 ….12 ….310
1889.6 ….13 ….448
1901.7 ….14 ….358
1913.6 ….15 ….215
1923.6 ….16 ….391
1933.8 ….17 ….230
1944.2 ….18 ….418
1954.3 ….19 ….236
1964.9 ….20 ….443
1976.5 ….21 ….277
1986.8 ….22 ….460
1996.6 ….23 ….283
2008.7 ….24 ….491
Variations of Solar and Cosmic Ray Cycles
at the Maunder Minimum
http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf pg7
Two lengthened cycles before the onset of the Maunder Minimum
First lengthened cycle
> weaker polar field
Second lengthened cycle
> both weakened polar field & slower meridional circulation
Suppressed, interupted or just slowing down for no apparent reason. Looks like the solar system has changed due to some exterior forces acting upon it again, just like it changed during the M M.
We need a mechanicism..turbulence..this ol solarsystem ship can be rocked by the turbulence of the interstellar background. It’s a scaled up sorta thing.
Are these also examples of turbulence, of the solar system scale?
1 Solar Wind Energy Source Discovered
March 8, 2013: Using data from an aging NASA spacecraft, researchers have found signs of an energy source in the solar wind that has caught the attention of fusion researchers.
..Ion cyclotron waves are made of protons that circle in wavelike-rhythms around the sun’s magnetic field. According to a theory developed by Phil Isenberg (University of New Hampshire) and expanded by Vitaly Galinsky and Valentin Shevchenko (UC San Diego), ion cyclotron waves emanate from the sun; coursing through the solar wind, they heat the gas to millions of degrees and accelerate its flow to millions of miles per hour. Kasper’s findings confirm that ion cyclotron waves are indeed active, at least in the vicinity of Earth where the Wind probe operates..
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08mar_solarwind/
2 Cluster observes a ‘porous’ magnetopause
24 Oct 2012
..Previous discoveries derived from Cluster measurements have shown that the magnetopause is weakened by Kelvin-Helmholtz waves (KHW). These are huge swirls of plasma, up to 40 000 km across, which develop along the outer edge of the magnetosphere. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities can occur when two adjacent flows are travelling with different speeds, so one is slipping past the other. The same phenomenon also occurs in the atmosphere when two air layers lying close to each other move at different speed.
Whether or not such waves can be excited somewhere along the magnetopause depends on the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field associated with the solar wind. Instability is facilitated when the flow is moving perpendicular to the magnetic field.
One consequence of the presence of KHW is that they result in a sudden, dramatic reconfiguration of the magnetic field lines – known as magnetic reconnection. This process of breaking and reconnecting field lines enables charged particles from the solar wind to enter the magnetosphere.
As mentioned above, one key factor in the magnetosphere/solar wind interaction is the magnetic alignment of the interplanetary magnetic fields (IMF). It is generally thought that the most important process by which the solar wind enters Earth’s magnetosphere is reconnection on Earth’s dayside. This is most efficient when the IMF is aligned southward – the opposite to the northward alignment of Earth’s magnetic field. The temporary tangling of the field lines creates ideal conditions for magnetic reconnection, allowing large amounts of plasma and magnetic energy to be transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere.
Magnetic reconnection also occurs with a northward orientation of the IMF, but it is more localised to higher latitudes. Spacecraft observations have indicated that Kelvin-Helmholtz waves may also play an important role in the transfer of solar wind material into the magnetosphere during a northward IMF..
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=50977
3 Detection of Small-Scale Structures in the Dissipation Regime of Solar-Wind Turbulence
Publication date: 08 Nov 2012
Copyright: American Physical Society
Recent observations of the solar wind have pointed out the existence of a cascade of magnetic energy from the scale of the proton Larmor radius rhop down to the electron Larmor radius rhoe scale. In this Letter we study the spatial properties of magnetic field fluctuations in the solar wind and find that at small scales the magnetic field does not resemble a sea of homogeneous fluctuations, but rather a two-dimensional plane containing thin current sheets and discontinuities with spatial sizes ranging from l>=rhop down to rhoe and below. These isolated structures may be manifestations of intermittency that localize sites of turbulent dissipation. Studying the relationship between turbulent dissipation, reconnection, and intermittency is crucial for understanding the dynamics of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.
Ulric Lyons says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:02 am
Again indicating a maximum at 1705. I’ll take it that there were two cycles from ~1685 to 1705 like there should be.
At that ‘maximum’ in 1695 there were only one sunspot group observed [on 27-30 May], so observations invalidate your assumption.
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:26 am
note heliocentric longitude, calculate angular difference, considering that the spiral has to encounter J first than S.
Which scatter all over the place. No surprise. And the Jovian magnetospheric tail is aligned with the radial solar wind, not with the spiral. Last, but not least: no magnetic or ‘electric’ influence can travel upstream in the supersonic solar wind. This is the piece of solid physics you should learn, remember, and cherish.
You evaded my question:
“with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?
lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 7:10 am (replying to )
Ulric Lyons says:
March 10, 2013 at 3:50 am
Could we not then test the three cases against each of the theories that are being challenged or whatever theory or pattern is being proposed?
That is “The number of cycles and the dates of their cycle peaks are uncertain.
Thus:
If there were 7 cycles, these are dates of the seven theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 … )
If there were 8 cycles, these are the dates of the eight theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 …)
If there were 9 cycles, these are the dates of the nine theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 …)”
RACookPE1978 says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:42 am
“How many cycles should there have been 1605-1687? This is a better question as we know the answer [seven].”
Could we not then test the three cases against each of the theories that are being challenged or whatever theory or pattern is being proposed?
As the data is uncertain 1690 to 1700 we can only test 1605-1687. The 10Be data shows 7 cycles with a mean period of 11.7 years. http://www.leif.org/research/Maunder-Minimum-Cycles.png
But in any event all the data are uncertain: sunspot observations, cosmic ray proxies both 14C and 10Be, so it is very hard to get a good test. It would be good if Ulrich could produce a list of where he thinks the maxima should be.
1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:30 am
We need a mechanism..turbulence..this ol solar system ship can be rocked by the turbulence of the interstellar background. It’s a scaled up sorta thing.
No, the interstellar magnetic field [an turbulence] cannot travel upstream in the supersonic solar wind. The examples you mention are about what the wind from the Sun does to the Earth and not relevant for disturbances travelling towards the Sun.
lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:38 am
You evaded my question:
“with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?
……
here is data again
1810.4 213
1823.3 392
1833.9 209
1843.5 403
1856.0 261
1867.2 446
1878.9 310
1889.6 448
1901.7 358
1913.6 215
1923.6 391
1933.8 230
1944.2 418
1954.3 236
1964.9 443
1976.5 277
1986.8 460
1996.6 283
2008.7 491
when you plot the graph you will see exactly what I meant, and it is what I said:
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
Now I thought that the examples (processes) mentioned were ubiqitous type. So above or below..
Starting to feel like Vuks. I’ll just re watch the video of Comet Lovejoy diving or flying through the solar atomosphere and emerging. (looks more like its flying). Here’s some inspiration for ya Vuks.
INBOUND
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=images/lovejoy/lovejoy_aia_inbound.gif
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=images/lovejoy/euviA_lovejoy_anim.gif
OUTBOUND
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=images/lovejoy/EUVI_B_lovejoy.gif
1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Now I thought that the examples (processes) mentioned were ubiquitous type.
Turbulence and instabilities are, but the don’t travel upstream, just like the ripples caused by throwing a rock into a fast-flowing river.
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 11:52 am
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
Once! is not every…
And what do you conclude from that coincidence?
Ok.. solar cycle length is increasing incrementally. Which makes sense to me and G cloud.
If ..
The solar cycle operates more efficently when the heliosphere is expanded a certain level size. Some of the pressure needs to get out.
When the background pressure begins to change and the force exerted upon it increases and it compresses the bubble, the out going pressure not escaping. Changes in escape velocity’s slowing (suppressing) solar cycle length. That could feed back a whole new population of Anomalous Cosmic Ray’s. (“role in 10BE record largely mis under estimated”)
1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 1:27 pm
When the background pressure begins to change and the force exerted upon it increases and it compresses the bubble, the out going pressure not escaping. Changes in escape velocity’s slowing (suppressing) solar cycle length.
No, nothing that happens out at the outer fringes of the heliosphere bubble can affect the solar cycle as the solar wind blows supersonically: 10 tines faster than changes can propagate back to the Sun. The solar wind particles that leave the Sun are travelling faster than the escape velocity from the Sun [at the distance where the particles are – otherwise they will just fall back onto the Sun]. Fire a gun at a stationary object far away. Now fire the gun at an object moving towards you [but still far away], there will no difference ion the recoil, or the bullet will not ravel slower when aimed at the moving object.
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 11:52 am
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
What happens is much simpler: http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-Failing-12.png the angle simply wraps around every 360 degrees, increasing by 17 degrees per year wrapping around in 21 years. The two series being 180 degrees apart.
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 11:52 am
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
correction: increasing by 17 degrees per cycle wrapping around in 360/17 = 21 cycles or .233 years.
lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 3:25 pm
The solar wind particles that leave the Sun are travelling faster than the escape velocity from the Sun [at the distance where the particles are – otherwise they will just fall back onto the Sun]. Fire a gun at a stationary object far away. Now fire the gun at an object moving towards you [but still far away], there will no difference ion the recoil, or the bullet will not ravel slower when aimed at the moving object.
_______
Say for instance the super sonic solar wind has to become
sub sonic at 100AU instead of 150AU
because your moving towards you object is already closer than you think.
Wouldn’t that change the rate of charge exchange with our closer than thought object. Create more Anomalous Cosmic RAys?
Or if the supersonic solar wind had to slow at 75AU what would that do to the rate of charge exchange?
1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Wouldn’t that change the rate of charge exchange with our closer than thought object. Create more Anomalous Cosmic Rays?
Yes, the size of the heliosphere [whether caused by changes in the Sun or the interstellar medium] does control the flux of cosmic rays [normal and anomalous ones], but that does not influence solar activity or the solar cycle length. To keep with our gun analogy: a machine gun moves down a moving line of enemies. How they move and how close or far they are will determine the number of dead bodies found at various locations on the battlefield, but will not influence the functioning of the gun.
The sun is not infallible or untouchable and stuff like inflows, (helium focusing cone) hydrogen, dust, carbon just waltz thru.
See comet Lovejoy animations on an earlier post.
I’m seeing a permanent birfication seperating the HCS into two hemis. Do we really know the Parker spiral when it is extended to greater lengths like 75AU? Think I have seen that under debate in a recent article.
1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 7:27 pm
The sun is not infallible or untouchable and stuff like inflows, (helium focusing cone) hydrogen, dust, carbon just waltz thru.
All of that is just fluff that doesn’t have any effect on the solar cycle. The Sun is like a truck driving through a swarm of mosquitoes.
I’m seeing a permanent birfication seperating the HCS into two hemis
From a paper I wrote long ago: “The interplanetary magnetic field within several astronomical units of the Sun appears to have one polarity in most of the hemisphere north of the solar equatorial plane and the opposite polarity in most of the hemisphere south of the equatorial plane. The two hemispheres are separated by a curved current sheet…” This is the discovery of the HCS.
http://www.leif.org/research/HCS-Nature-1976.pdf
Do we really know the Parker spiral when it is extended to greater lengths like 75AU? Think I have seen that under debate in a recent article.
What matters is not what it looks like at 75AU, but how it behaves close to the Sun.
You are correct 200+ years, but when odd and even cycles are plotted separately
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.gif
even cycles dip around 1810 and odd around 1915.
Data:
ODD EVEN
1755.2 232
1766.5 439
1775.5 233
1784.7 391
1798.3 289
1810.4 213
1823.3 392
1833.9 209
1843.5 403
1856.0 261
1867.2 446
1878.9 310
1889.6 448
1901.7 358
1913.6 215
1923.6 391
1933.8 230
1944.2 418
1954.3 236
1964.9 443
1976.5 277
1986.8 460
1996.6 283
2008.7 491
2017.0 300
Probably means nothing, but as you say it is entertaining
Looking at the graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.gif
the odd cycles have some tome to go (about 5 cycles or 110 years) to hit 540ish degree before another dip as one in 1910, making it 220-230 years.
However, the even cycles are about to hit the ceiling on the next minimum like and on the next around 2040 dip as in 1810, making it 230 years.
So situation cycles are approaching now are more like one about 1800 .
🙂
Lot of fun for the next generation of ‘planetary’ nutters.