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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Looking at the graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.gif
the odd cycles have some time 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, and on the next one around 2040 dip, as in 1810, making it 230 years.
So situation cycles are approaching now is more like one about 1800 .
🙂
Lot of fun for next generation of ‘planetary’ nutters.
lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:38 am
“At that ‘maximum’ in 1695 there were only one sunspot group observed [on 27-30 May], so observations invalidate your assumption.”
The 10Be graph shows normal Hale periodicity 1685 to 1705 implying two cycles. In fact the Hale signal through those decades is the clearest in the whole series:
Page 16: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
As you prefer to refer back to sunspot observations, there are zero sunspots from 1690 to 1699 except for 1695, which has 1 group and SSN = 6, again indicating a maximum there.
Ulric Lyons says:
March 11, 2013 at 3:30 am
In fact the Hale signal through those decades is the clearest in the whole series:
Page 16: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
This is what Miyahara shows: http://www.leif.org/research/Miyahara-14yr-Cycles.png
Muescheler’s 14C and McCracken’s 10Be show this behavior:
http://www.leif.org/research/Cosmic-Rays-Maunder-Minimum.png
Count the number of cycles in the green box…
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:24 am
You are correct 200+ years, but when odd and even cycles are plotted separately…
This has nothing to do with odd/even cycles, Parker spiral, or anything interesting. It is just that Saturn goes around in its orbit at a bit slower than twice Jupiter’s period, so each time Jupiter is in certain position, Saturn will be alternatively on one side of the Sun and on the other [not quite, hence the 17 degree slip] explaining the 180 phase shift. No fun at all.
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:24 am
You are correct 200+ years, but when odd and even cycles are plotted separately…
This has nothing to do with odd/even cycles, Parker spiral, or anything interesting. It is just that Saturn goes around in its orbit at a bit slower than twice Jupiter’s period, so each time Jupiter is in certain position, Saturn will be alternatively on one side of the Sun and on the other [not quite, hence the 17 degree slip] explaining the 180 phase shift. No fun at all.
@lsvalgaard
Like I said the Hale signal at 1685 to 1705 is the clearest part in the series on page 16 here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
That is two cycles there, plus the 7 cycles from 1605 to 1685 makes 9.
Ulric Lyons says:
March 11, 2013 at 9:11 am
Like I said the Hale signal at 1685 to 1705 is the clearest part in the series
What is the Hale cycle? The record shows the 11-14-yr Schwabe cycles.
That is two cycles there, plus the 7 cycles from 1605 to 1685 makes 9.
Two maxima is one cycle, not two.
It is clear that what data we have invalidate your wishful thinking.
lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 7:52 am
…..
Yes, the astronomic geometry is such as you describe.
Let’s consider what an electric or magnetic geometry would look like.
Assume that flow of plasma or a magnetic line is to connect the sun, Jupiter and Saturn in that order at solar minima. As you say it can’t go backwards against solar wind, and jump from one side of solar system to the other. To follow path of least resistance (at the solar minima) it has to go around stepping sideways, else it gets swept by solar wind all the way to the far reaches of the heliosphere. Applying 180 degree requirement (Parker spiral angle for crossing J and then S orbits) and assuming SC24 and SC25 about 11 years long, then the electric or magnetic geometry is
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.htm
It identifies correctly1810 and 1915 and the next (most likely grand) minima; chance or not, I would say it is matter of conjecture, not that you would agree.
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 11:56 am
To follow path of least resistance (at the solar minima) it has to go around stepping sideways,
You haven’t learned a thing. It can’t go ‘sideways’ either. In all my years of teaching and educating people I have never come across anybody as learning resistant as you.
lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 12:33 pm
In all my years of teaching and educating people I have never come across anybody as learning resistant as you.
How true, possibly the most exceptional example of D&K syndrome, you might say.
If you have a better explanation for the 100+ years cycle than one in the link http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.htm
let’s see it.
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:39 pm
If you have a better explanation for the 100+ years cycle than one in the link http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.htm
Your ideas are not an ‘explanation’ at all. Just nonsense hand waving. And there are lots of papers showing that long-period ‘cycles’ are perfectly possible within standard dynamo theory, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/ISSI/Passos.pdf
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:39 pm
If you have a better explanation for the 100+ years cycle than one in the link
Your ideas are not an ‘explanation’ at all. Just nonsense hand waving. The angles just keep wrapping around 360 degrees because a circle is round. There are no discontinuities or jumps
http://www.leif.org/research/Even-Odd-Vuk-Nonsense.png
The wrap-around s is elementary. Schoolchildren know this. Now you do too.
Hey doc, that is fuzzy-wuzzy answer.
a) How come that all the lots of papers showing that long-period ‘cycles’ are perfectly possible within standard dynamo did not predict forthcoming strong minimum, but simple planetary one I wrote 10 years ago (2003) did.
2) You keep regressing back to the astronomical geometry (it is not disputed) since you are totally flummoxed by the 180 degree ‘stipulation’ accurately showing 100+ years dips in the solar cycles progression.
True, I don’t understand why it works, but just coincidence for 3 successive events doesn’t work, so you resort to your standard ‘nonsense’ claim.
Btw, nearly finished new article on the geomagnetics, will email you a copy.
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 2:28 pm
did not predict forthcoming strong minimum, but simple planetary one I wrote 10 years ago (2003) did.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S [05/2003]
“The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24” it is important to be correct for the right reason.
I don’t understand why it works, but just coincidence for 3 successive events
I once flipped a coin three times in a row, it came up heads all three times.
There is nothing mysterious or noteworthy of the 180 degree shift as I have already explained [Jupiter makes two laps when Saturn makes one]. And it is good to see that you have abandoned your magnetic/electric ‘explanation’ [“I don’t understand how it works”], no understanding is needed for coincidences.
I once flipped a coin three times in a row, it came up heads all three times.
Nonsense, doc.
Correct 3 out of 3 from the possible 25 ?
Take 25 coins, write on them numbers 1-25, mark heads on 3 of them (on 6th, 15th and 25th), line coins up, then throw blindfolded all 25 one by one in consecutive order, write down your result, then start again, and again until you get heads only and only on the 3 you marked, then come back, else you are wasting my time.
vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 3:51 pm
Correct 3 out of 3 from the possible 25 ?
Now you are wasting everybody’s time. The individual cycles are not independent. There is a long cycle, so the issue is when the other minima of the long cycle are when one is chosen and there are not much choice. But this is also irrelevant as the ‘100-yr dips’ have no connection with the wrapping around at 360 degrees of the regular orbiting. In any event, it is good that you have given up your goofy magnetic/electric nonsense.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“There is general agreement among cosmic ray physicists …”
Presumably this means that some disagree???
You are presumptuous. I don’t know of any who disagree.
How is your English???? General to me mean the majority … not all!
Jon says:
March 11, 2013 at 5:25 pm
“There is general agreement among cosmic ray physicists …”
How is your English???? General to me mean the majority … not all!
But does not exclude ‘all’. In this case I do not know of any dissenters.
And in science “general agreement’ means that the data [or theory] are compelling enough to accept whatever it is as a fact. E.g. there is general agreement that the Earth is round, or that the Sun is powered by fusion of hydrogen to helium, or that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, If of 100 scientists a majority, 51, hold a certain view we would not call that ‘general agreement’.
lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 5:44 pm
“But does not exclude ‘all’. In this case I do not know of any dissenters.”
Yes, I know it does not “exclude all” but it is normally used to indicate a majority, not unanimity.
At one time the “general agreement” was that the earth was flat 🙂
Jon says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Yes, I know it does not “exclude all” but it is normally used to indicate a majority, not unanimity
No, not just ‘a majority’ [greater than 50%], but an ‘overwhelming majority’. As I said, for the case at hand, I know of no dissenters.
At one time the “general agreement” was that the earth was flat
General agreement is no guarantee for correctness, but just agreement with the data we know at any given time.
lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 9:27 am
“What is the Hale cycle?”
http://bit.ly/13WdnVm
The graph on page 16 of the Miyahara paper shows spikes at 1674 and 1694, that is the Hale cycle signal.
“Two maxima is one cycle, not two.”
I never mentioned the number of maxima there, I patently referred to a Hale cycle periodicity from 1685 to 1705, which has to be two cycles.