Sunspot count is virtually unchanged from last month :
It seems possible that we’ve seen the double peak, and it will be downhill after this.
A similar status quo in radio flux – little change from last month.
The Ap magnetic index dropped 4 units from last month, suggesting a slowing in the solar dynamo.
On August 1st, solar scientist David Hathaway updated his prediction page but the text is identical to last month – no change in the forecast.
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.
About the only significant even in the last month is that the solar polar fields have begun their reversal, indicating we are at “solar max”, which seems like a misnomer given the low activity observed at the moment. That’s why I think we may have seen the “double peak” and it is downhill from here.
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at sourceWatch the progress on the WUWT solar reference page
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 11:33 am
because someone says that Newton says he did not make a hypothesis?
Not just ‘someone’. Newton said that he makes no hypothesis. His theory of gravitation is a description of gravity using mathematics.
Yes Leif: Newton maintained a clear demarcation between theories that were supported by experimental results and hypotheses that were merely unsupported speculations. I get it. So I agree with you that his certainty allowed him to skip past making a hypothesis since he already had made empirical observations. But, this is just semantics. Before the empirical data, gravity still existed whether or not there was observation of gravity. His empirical observations did not happen first, they happened after apples fell from trees. That does not discount that positing is part of the scientific process right? He just went through this in his mind, so the hypothesis occurred in his mind in perhaps a swift moment for him. He had to posit that the apple falls because of some force… then he identified the force and it was good. It was, let us say, gravity. Now onto the spectrum of what makes light appear white.
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 10:51 am
—
Thanks Mario, but the apple hit the ground. The heliosphere bubble is free falling into a spiral motion creating a bit of vortex. This may appley or exert some gravitational influence on its constituent parties involved.
Yes HenryP. see what your saying but the first cause is where we differ. Planets are the mirror image of the solar motion through interstellar space.
lsvalgaard says:
August 18, 2013 at 11:41 am
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 11:33 am
because someone says that Newton says he did not make a hypothesis?
Not just ‘someone’. Newton said that he makes no hypothesis. His theory of gravitation is a description of gravity using mathematics.
++++++++++
Yes – I was making a point that even you Leif, did not hear or see him write down the statement hundreds of years ago. You heard it or read it from someone who printed or posted that he wrote that he made no hypothesis… And we can agree that it’s “probably” not a contentious point. It is well known as you point out that he made this claim… and the meaning to me is subjective… since at some point he had to posit the thought, even if only to himself. Somewhere there was some positing going on –even if he did not say or proclaim a posit, there was no theory until evidence was collected and mathematical relationships were arranged to claim the theory.
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 11:59 am
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 10:51 am
—
Thanks Mario, but the apple hit the ground. The heliosphere bubble is free falling into a spiral motion creating a bit of vortex. This may appley or exert some gravitational influence on its constituent parties involved.
+++++
The only point I made (at least that was my intent) was to suggest that positing must occur before we can arrive at a theory. Timescales must be considered. So even if the posit was for a mere few milliseconds, there had to be a posit before the theory. And therefore, I claim it is nonsensical (to me) that positing is not part of the scientific method.
Do I think I can hold a candle to Leif? No… but I can still feel comfy enough to engage in skeptical debate on words used. I posit that I am not being disrespectful here, but I need to gather the data to make sure I am not being disrespectful… 🙂
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 12:02 pm
even you Leif, did not hear or see him write down the statement hundreds of years ago. You heard it or read it from someone who printed or posted that he wrote that he made no hypothesis…
I’m holding in my hands his book ‘The Principia [2nd edition – General Scholium]’ and in it he wrote ‘hypothesis non fingo’. One would presume that he read [from the printed page] what he wrote and agreed with what he wrote [and what was printed], so that it is should correct to state that Newton actually said that and meant what he said.
As far as I know the story with the apple is that it was clear to Newton that an apple falling from a tree would be accelerated as it fell [Galileo had shown that falling bodies accelerate]. Now, so the story goes, Newton thought about an apple falling from a tree twice as tall. It would still be accelerated [and even more], then about a still higher tree, and so on, imagining a tree extending all the way to the Moon, the apple would still be falling, so why not the Moon itself. Upon calculating the acceleration Newton found that math didn’t work out and abandoned the idea. It turned out that the distance to the Moon was not well known at the time. When later an improved distance became available, Newton repeated the calculation and this time the numbers came out right, so Newton did now return to the matter of developing his theory for gravity.
The standard definition of the verb ‘posit’ is: “Assume as a fact as a basis for an argument”. I have myself made several scientific discoveries and never felt that I posited anything. What is missing from Carla’s positing is the ‘argument’ part. So, she can posit and it would be science if it is followed by a physics-based argument yielding numbers that can be compared with observations, otherwise it is just assertion.
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 11:33 am
Newton’s actual scientific method is still somewhat controversial among historians of science, but he is widely suspected of hiding the truth in order to protect or project priority in discoveries & inventions.
What Sir Isaac actually wrote in the essay, General Scholium, appended to the second (1713) edition of the Principia, was, “Hypotheses non fingo”, Latin for “I feign (frame or contrive) no hypotheses”.
The passage containing this famous remark was translated in 1999 by Cohen & Whitman as:
“I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.”
Some if not most students of Newton today think that he did not conceive of universal gravitation to its fullest extent in 1666, inspired by a falling apple, as later described by himself & to his friend, Mint colleague & nephew-in-law, John Conduitt.
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sgravity.htm
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/ufhatch/pages/01-courses/current-courses/08sr-newton.htm
There is a school of thought which believes that he did not completely abandon Cartesian physics until after Halley’s Comet of 1682.
http://www.dioi.org/kn/moontest.htm
Others think that he did in fact have the insight of universal gravitation in 1666 & made a first attempt at the moon test, the results of which didn’t quite jibe with observations, because of an insufficiently accurate (or precise) estimate of Earth’s radius.
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~curd/QQ9.html
IMO, he did in fact hypothesize, ie make a WAG or reasonable assumption, then spent years trying to support it with observations & math. The Principia itself arose out of his assertion to Halley that he had already shown that the orbit of planets must be elliptical, based upon the inverse square relationship, but had mislaid the work.
http://mathpages.com/home/kmath658/kmath658.htm
Mario Lento says:
August 18, 2013 at 12:09 pm
—
Good enough..and still all is well.
And to HenryP., do you understand the many implications of having the heliosphere’s “termination shock” inside Uranus orbit? Talk about your geomagnetic jerks. Oh my.. In other time periods does it (termination shock) just come in close to Uranus orbit? We know that heliospheric boundaries vary and change on all time scales.
PROBING OUR HELIOSPHERIC HISTORY II
Constructing A Density Profile of the LISM in the Sun’s Rearview Mirror
Katherine I. Wyman1, Seth Redfield2
http://hea-www.cfa.harvard.edu/~kwyman/pdfs/poster12.pdf
Abstract
…Our analysis suggests
that within the last 10 million years, if the Sun encountered a cloud with the same properties as we have detected along the solar historical trajectory,
the Sun’s termination shock would have resided inside the orbit of Uranus,
with a GCR fl ux at Earth an order of magnitude greater than it is currently….
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 1:02 pm
the Sun’s termination shock would have resided inside the orbit of Uranus,
with a GCR fl ux at Earth an order of magnitude greater than it is currently….
Two things wrong with this:
1) this may have happened on time scales on millions or billions of years. ain’t happening now, so of no interest
2) There is no good evidence that cosmic rays have anything to do with the climate not with paleo-climate.
lsvalgaard says:
August 18, 2013 at 1:17 pm
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 1:02 pm
the Sun’s termination shock would have resided inside the orbit of Uranus,
with a GCR fl ux at Earth an order of magnitude greater than it is currently….
Two things wrong with this:
1) this may have happened on time scales on millions or billions of years. ain’t happening now, so of no interest
—
Yet the solar cycle continues to wax and wane like its riding and undulating, co mixing WAVE.
Sometimes it wanes for longer periods and sometimes shorter. And that is a good point for someone looking for root causes in solar cycle variations.
The smaller background structures Dr. S., are in abundance so much so that it is producing a foreground, making it only possible to see the outline of your once in a while (millions of years) dealeo.
I think you know that in the extreme case that it would be more than just cosmic ray flux encroaching on the planetary systems. Accretion .. the ‘A’ word.
Surfs up Dr. S.
beach boys-surfin usa
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 1:43 pm
I think you know that in the extreme case that it would be more than just cosmic ray flux encroaching on the planetary systems. Accretion .. the ‘A’ word.
First, we are not having an extreme case now, and second, the relevant ‘accretion’ has no effect on anything.
Sorry Dr. S. your in a rotating magnetic shell, with a current sheet, it is wavy and carrying sign.
Now put a background within your rotating magnetic shell, fill it with cloudlets and filamentary structures. Picture a scale larger than the suns wavy current sheet, producing undulating waves. This is what the sun’s itsy, bitsy current sheet gets to couple with. Itsy, bitsy by comparison.
Up and down it wobbles that huge scale rotating magnetic current sheet.
Maybe I should posit that the up and down periodicity of the rotating magnetic sheet is at around 60 to 90 years.
I would say the door is still open at to what influences solar cycle like behavior. These days we are starting to see more of the different types of astrospheres in our galaxy. This should be quite helpful..
More information about our suns heliospheric interface, coupling with the local interstellar medium. This is but another recent article. There is so much new data and observations..
Unsteady processes in the vicinity of the heliopause: Are we in the LISM yet?
SOLAR WIND 13: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Solar Wind Conference
Date: 17–22 June 2012
N. V. Pogorelov1, S. N. Borovikov2, L. F. Burlaga3, R. W. Ebert4, I. A. Kryukov1, S. T. Suess5, G. P. Zank1, and M. C. Bedford1
http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/2/apcpcs/1539/1/352_1?isAuthorized=no
As the twin Voyager spacecraft approach the boundary of the heliosphere, they continue returning new and unexplained measurements of the solar wind (SW) protons, energetic particles, and magnetic field that often differ markedly between the two spacecraft.
Our recent studies show that time-dependent effects play a crucial role in understanding and interpreting the observational data. Since the SW is unsteady on many different time scales, its interaction with the local interstellar medium (LISM) should reflect the solar rotation and cycle, as well as merged interplanetary disturbances. Even a simplified solar cycle model allowed us to predict in 2009 the possibility of a negative radial velocity component in the SW as the heliopause is approached.
Further analysis shows a nearly vanishing latitudinal velocity component, while the longitudinal component becomes comparable substantial.
Here we discuss the change of the magnetic field and plasma properties across the heliopause, which is important for the identification of its spacecraft crossing. We discuss the effects of heliopause instabilities and corotating interaction regions, and demonstrate that Voyagers are unlikely to see a sharp boundary between the SW and the LISM, but rather a mixing layer of varying width.
© 2013 AIP Publishing LLC
Off Topic here: But will Japan’s huge Volcano eruption several hours ago now be a new excuse for any cooling temperatures seen?
http://www.weather.com/news/volcano-japan-sakurajima-eruption-20130818
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 2:36 pm
This is what the sun’s itsy, bitsy current sheet gets to couple with. Itsy, bitsy by comparison.
It doesn’t matter, as none of that makes it upstream to the Sun, it is like the Mississippi River flowing into the Gulf. The waves out there don’t make it to the headwaters of the river.
Maybe we need more coupling examples.. To help us understand this vast interaction region that couples the IMF to the ISMF.
THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEATURES OF THE OUTER HELIOSPHERE DUE TO
COUPLING BETWEEN THE
INTERSTELLAR AND INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS. III.
THE EFFECTS OF SOLAR ROTATION AND ACTIVITY CYCLE
Nikolai V. Pogorelov1, Sergey N. Borovikov1, Gary P. Zank1, and Tatsuki Ogino2
The Astrophysical Journal, 696:1478–1490, 2009 May 10
We investigate the effects of the 11 year solar cycle and 25 day rotation period of the Sun on the interaction of the solar wind (SW) with the local interstellar medium (LISM).
Our models take into account the partially ionized character of the LISM and include
momentum and energy transfer between the ionized and neutral components.
We assume that the interstellar magnetic field vector belongs to the hydrogen deflection plane as
discovered in the SOHO SWAN experiment. This plane is inclined at an angle of about 60◦ toward the ecliptic plane of the Sun, as suggested in recent publications relating the
local interstellar cloud properties to the radio emission observed by Voyager 1.
It is assumed that the latitudinal extent of the boundary between the slow
and fast SW regions, as well as the angle between the Sun’s rotation and magnetic-dipole axes, are periodic functions of time, while the polarity of the
interstellar magnetic field changes sign every 11 years at the solar
maximum. The global variation of the SW–LISM interaction pattern, the excursions of the termination shock and the heliopause, and parameter distributions in certain directions are investigated. The analysis of the behavior of the wavy heliospheric current sheet
in the supersonic SW region shows the importance of neutral atoms on its dynamics.
No don’t be taken back by all this.. the description of the HCS during solar activity cycle is quite good, in this article.. more to follow from the introduction..
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Maybe we need more coupling examples.. To help us understand this vast interaction region that couples the IMF to the ISMF.
What you need to understand is the coupling takes place at the interface between the two media and does not influence the Sun. BTW, I was one of the discoverers of the HCS and especially of its importance for modulating cosmic rays, so I do know what I’m talking about.
THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEATURES OF THE OUTER HELIOSPHERE DUE TO COUPLING BETWEEN THE
INTERSTELLAR AND INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS. III. THE EFFECTS OF SOLAR ROTATION
AND ACTIVITY CYCLE
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/696/2/1478/pdf/0004-637X_696_2_1478.pdf
from the intro
…The boundary is a function of time within a solar activity period. Second, t
he Sun’s rotation and magnetic-dipole axes never coincide. For this reason,
the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), which divides the SW into regions of opposite
IMF polarity, has a complicated wavy shape. The IMF polarity changes related
to a 25 day solar rotation period were first identified from IMP-1 observations
by Ness & Wilcox (1964, 1965). Definitive evidence of the inclined HCS
(with dependence on the heliographic latitude) was provided by Pioneer 11
(Smith 1978).
An extensive analysis of the HCS behavior at distances covered by
the Ulysses trajectory was undertaken by Smith (2001). It was shown
that at 1 AU the width of the HCS is extremely small (∼10,000 km)
as compared with distances characteristic for the heliospheric interface.
The HCS is a little like a magnetic equator. Extrapolated back to the
Sun, especially during solar minimum, the HCS corresponds to the lower-latitude
streamer belt. The HCS is surrounded by an approximately 30 times thicker
heliospheric plasma sheet (HPS), i.e., about 0.002 AU.
Both the HCS and HPS scale thicknesses are far too small to be modeled
globally even with modern supercomputers and adaptive mesh refinement (AMR)
techniques, if we perform calculations in a region of about 103 AU size,
which is needed to model the SW–LISM interaction.
As shown by Winterhalter et al. (1994), the change in the magnetic field direction
to an opposite across the HCS does not imply that the IMF vanishes.
That is, the magnetic field vector rotates within the HCS, and the latter can be marginally interpreted as an Alfv´en discontinuity. In any event, the investigation
of the HCS behavior in this paper is based on the assumption that the effect
of the HCS smearing due to numerical dissipation can be disregarded. The accuracy
of this assumption will be clear from our results.
If the angle α between the Sun’s rotation and magnetic axes is a known function of time,
while the region swept out by the HCS is occupied by a radially expanding SW
with zero latitudinal and longitudinal velocity components, simple geometrical
considerations allow us to derive approximate formulae for the HCS location
as a function of time at different heliocentric distances…
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:27 pm
THREE-DIMENSIONAL FEATURES OF THE OUTER HELIOSPHERE DUE TO COUPLING BETWEEN THE INTERSTELLAR AND INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS. III.
THE EFFECTS OF SOLAR ROTATION AND ACTIVITY CYCLE
Here is your problem: you misread the little word ‘OF’ and think it is ‘ON’ and therefore get direction of causality reversed.
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:39 pm
…The boundary is a function of time within a solar activity period. Second, the Sun’s rotation and magnetic-dipole axes never coincide. For this reason, the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), which divides the SW into regions of opposite IMF polarity, has a complicated wavy shape.
All that was discovered and explained by us more than 35 years ago.
lsvalgaard says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Maybe we need more coupling examples.. To help us understand this vast interaction region that couples the IMF to the ISMF.
..BTW, I was one of the discoverers of the HCS and especially of its importance for modulating cosmic rays, so I do know what I’m talking about.
—
Yes, I know, you know, what it is you are talking about. But even you and your brain need to keep updating as new information becomes available.. that’s what keeps us young remember?
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:47 pm
But even you and your brain need to keep updating as new information becomes available..
There is no new information that changes the fundamental picture that was laid down so long ago. What we have now are mere details and curlicues [which are, of course, interesting in their own right and so nicely confirmatory of the general picture]
lsvalgaard says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Carla says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:47 pm
But even you and your brain need to keep updating as new information becomes available..
There is no new information that changes the fundamental picture that was laid down so long ago. What we have now are mere details and curlicues [which are, of course, interesting in their own right and so nicely confirmatory of the general picture]
—
You mean more specific details from satellites. And I like the curly-cues, being just a stamp collector and all.. We have more data from satellites coming in, I think, than we have people to help cross ref over different but similar disciplines and disseminate it. Like for instance, I’m hoping the Wyman/Redfield team has seen the latest heliotail models from IBEX and ICECUBE.
@anyone here who knows
How often, exactly, do the poles of the sun change sides?
Have you ever heard of a double flip over?