It is looking more and more like a double sunspot peak for solar cycle 24.
Sunspot count is down again:
A similar drop occurred in radio flux.
The Ap magnetic index remains low, but is up 3 units from last month:
On July 1st, solar scientist David Hathaway has updated his prediction page:
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The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 67 in the Summer 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. The smoothed sunspot number has been rising again over the last four months. 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 sunspot count in this low cycle has been inflated by the counting of tiny ‘pores’ which weren’t counted in previous cycles.
The reality is that this cycle is around the same magnitude as cycle 5 at the start of the 1800’s when the Sun went into the Dalton solar minimum.
I can’t wait till the Progressers realize they’ve been proven wrong by this current Grand Solar Minimum on the subject of Man-Made Climate Change/Man-Made Global Warming.
As I understand it Tallbloke, corrections are applied which are supposed to deal with this issue. Whether the corrections are correct is another matter. But in any case the situation isn’t as simple as your comment makes it seem.
@tallbloke
A website in Germany shows a comparison of SC5 and SC24, as well as the average of SC1-23.
http://www.kaltesonne.de/?p=11437
tallbloke, that may have been the case at the beginning of the cycle, but is not true now, when all sunspots are quite big. So the low numbers may have been exagerated, but not the big ones that we have now.
BTW, the smoothed maximum may be higher, but we didn’t have any single month with average SSN>=100 yet, whereas cycle 14 did. So this one is smaller than Cycle 14… in a way.
Just multiply the older sunspot numbers before 1947 by 1.20 to get the current inflated adjusted sunspots.
It’s maybe better to display each hemisphere in SSN count to get a better picture of the progress.
magnetic vs sunspot,
it is a minimum
http://i.minus.com/iYUiVS5I3VEpI.gif
By my 10 year old calculation we are sailing through a SC24 max.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
Polar magnetic field (lower graph) appears to have a more regular progression, on basis of which one could conclude that the PF is a proxy for the actual solar dynamo driver.
Vuk
Your post has been up nearly ten minutes now. Where is Leif? Is he ill?
Tonyb
It is an observational fact that sunspots are being replaced by pores. It is curious that there is no mention of that fact in the solar cycle 24 update. It appears the sun will be spotless by the end of this year if my understanding of what is happening to the sun is correct. That is not a double peak but rather an abrupt unexplained change to the solar magnetic cycle.
We know that the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots has been decaying linearly. There needs to be an explanation for why that is true and how that change affects the solar magnetic cycle.
The magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots has been decaying linearly which supports the assertion that sunspots are formed from magnetic ropes that are create at the narrow region in the sun that separates the solar convection zone from the radiative zone. The magnetic ropes then rise up through the convection zone to the surface of the sun where they form sunspots. Something has changed in the tachocline or the vicinity of the tachocline.
As the magnetic field strength of the ropes that rise up to form the sunspots on the surface of the sun decays, the ropes start to be affected by the turbulence forces in the solar convection zone and what forms on the sun is pores rather than the concentrated strong magnetic field configuration that is called a sunspot.
Eugene Parker did theoretical calculations to determine a minimum magnetic field strength for the magnetic rope to resist the turbulence forces in the solar convection zone. If the field strength of the magnetic ropes continues to decline the field strength will fall below that minimum strength and the magnetic ropes will be torn apart by convection forces. There will be no pores on the surface of the sun.
The consequences of magnetic ropes that are torn apart is different that a reduction in the number of sunspots.
The tachocline mechanism requires the remnants of past sunspots to form the ropes for the next generation of magnetic ropes.
Tonyb says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:56 am
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He has been rather busy on, and perhaps thereby preoccupied with the article on the faint sun paradox
It would be fun to see this graph with all their previous predictions along with the date each prediction was made.
All we’re seeing here is their latest prediction, undated and still too high. Like a bad doctor they get to bury and forget their previous mistakes.
William Astley says:
July 11, 2013 at 1:03 am
It is an observational fact that sunspots are being replaced by pores. It is curious that there is no mention of that fact in the solar cycle 24 update. It appears the sun will be spotless by the end of this year if my understanding of what is happening to the sun is correct. That is not a double peak but rather an abrupt unexplained change to the solar magnetic cycle.
We know that the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots has been decaying linearly. There needs to be an explanation for why that is true and how that change affects the solar magnetic cycle.
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Leif will jump up and down after this.
Read up on the Electric Universe. It explains far more than the current theories explain.
We somehow thought the sun was getting quiet with the surface temperature plateauing but unfortunately we are not sure exactly what the various parts of the total solar spectra do to climate. Solar science is advancing, despite climate science, but we are still ignorant of much that goes on.
Yes Tallbloke a Dalton Minimum does seem more likely.
It will be a long plateau, the decline will start after 2014/15.
Could we see a list of predictions for SC24 from the very beginning for comparison? 2006 was the start was it not? I seem to recall some solar “experts” using a “mode”l to “accurately” predict SC24 with great precision by the “experts”, only for it to fall flat on its face!
Did Archibald predict this?
“Edim says:
July 11, 2013 at 2:48 am”
I recall a prediction like that being made by Russian scientists. We didn’t have too long to wait to see some evidence to support that prediction.
http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/155225/
Speaking of Leif: Do we know if the sun puts out more or less energy with lots of sunspots versus very few sunspots? It had always confused me that (if I recall correctly) people thought there was a correlation with lots of sunspots and high solar activity when the spots themselves were actually cooler. In a post the other day you mentioned the possibility that the sun is hotter when there are few sunspots and that the cold weather in some of the historic minimums was due to volcanos. Is this a serious likelihood believed by many solar scientists or is this just a possibility favored by a few?
We are currently 11 years since the end of the significant part of the last solar maximum period of sunspot cycle #23 which was the year of 2003 which had a peak sunspot number of 104 . This was part of a long solar cycle of #23 which lasted about 12.6 years. Global temperatures started to drop about 2004/2005 and the winters were cold in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2013. Looking back at similar historical solar cycle developments, we can compare 2013 with 1801 or 1873 when we also had 11 years without any major sunspot years and there were longer solar cycles involved, like solar cycle #4 which lasted 13.6 years and solar cycle # 14 which lasted 11.7 years. Global climate tends to drop at the end of long solar cycles and also during the decade following. One can see the global temperatures decline at the end of cycles # 9,13,14,20. If the next solar cycle or cycles continue to be low as they did after # 4 and # 11 , then lower global temperatures may continue for decades there after . This may be the case for the next several decades if the current solar cycle #24 and the next, namely # 25, and # 26 are all low as some are predicting. . Global oceans STT have been now flat for 16 years and are now showing a decline since 2005. Global cooling seems to be indicated. to me even if we do not understand the mechanism yet .
Bill_W says:
July 11, 2013 at 4:22 am
The sunspots are darker and cooler than the surface around the sunspots, but just outside the sunspots, the sun is brighter. The output in total energy is about 0.1% higher for an active sun. In the UV range that is 1% or a factor 10, influencing the ozone layer and the jet stream positions due to an increased temperature difference equator-poles in the lower stratosphere. That influences wind and cloud/rain patterns in each hemisphere…
Mchaelwiseguy: Simple, they will still deny they are wrong. AGW is a religion, not a science. Religion depends on consensus, it depends on having a holy book, on having saints and sinners, on having indulgences, tithes and holy causes. Science depends on skepticism and the willingness to go where evidence leads you. When Keynes was asked why he changed his mind on a subject he famously answered, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?” Can you imagine Al Gore or Michael Mann or Hensen changing their minds on Global Warming?
Bill_W says:
July 11, 2013 at 4:22 am
Do we know if the sun puts out more or less energy with lots of sunspots versus very few sunspots?
Higher magnetic activity, solar flares and x-rays form around areas where Sunspots are, the sunspots themselves are cooler than their surroundings.
In my opinion, during other solar minimums less clouds appear to form but during the height of solar activity electrical activity on earth increases, thunderstorms and related hail, floods etc… during summer, and snowier colder conditions during winter. Its a very complex system that’s for sure.
With nothing more sophisticated than my Eyeball(TM) 1.0, that doesn’t look like a double peak to me but as something that has peaked and is now on the downslope.