Our resident solar expert, Dr. Leif Svalgaard, sends word of this new discovery.
Stanford solar scientists solve one of the sun’s mysteries
The sun’s magnetic field can play havoc with communications technology. Stanford scientists have now described one of the underlying processes that help form the magnetic field, which could help scientists predict its behavior.
By Bjorn Carey
Stanford solar scientists have solved one of the few remaining fundamental mysteries of how the sun works.
The mechanism, known as meridional flow, works something like a conveyor belt. Magnetic plasma migrates north to south on the sun’s surface, from the equator to the poles, and then cycles into the sun’s interior on its way back to the equator.
The rate and depth beneath the surface of the sun at which this process occurs is critical for predicting the sun’s magnetic and flare activity, but has remained largely unknown until now.
The solar scientists used the Stanford-operated Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) – an instrument onboard NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory satellite – to track solar waves in much the way seismologists would study seismic movements beneath the surface of the Earth. Every 45 seconds for the past two years, the HMI’s Doppler radar snapped images of plasma waves moving across the sun’s surface.
By identifying patterns of sets of waves, the scientists could recognize how the solar materials move from the sun’s equator toward the poles, and how they return to the equator through the sun’s interior.
“Once we understood how long it takes the wave to pass across the exterior, we determined how fast it moves inside, and thus how deep it goes,” said Junwei Zhao, a senior research scientist at the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford, and lead author on the paper.
Although solar physicists have long hypothesized such a mechanism, at least in general terms, the new observations redefine solar currents in a few ways. First, the returning currents occur 100,000 kilometers below the surface of the sun, roughly half as deep as suspected. As such, solar materials pass through the interior and return to the equator more quickly than hypothesized.
More startling, Zhao said, is that the equator-ward flow is actually sandwiched between two “layers” of pole-ward currents, a more complicated mechanism than previously thought, and one that could help refine predictions of the sun’s activity.
“Considered together, this means that our previously held beliefs about the solar cycle are not totally accurate, and that we may need to make accommodations,” Zhao said.
For example, some computer models projected that the current solar cycle would be strong, but observations have since showed it is actually much weaker than the previous cycle. This inconsistency could be due to the previously unknown inaccuracies of the meridional circulation mechanism used in the simulations.
Improving the accuracy of simulations, Zhao said, will produce a better picture of fluctuations of the sun’s magnetic field, which can interfere with satellites and communications technology on Earth. The sun’s magnetic field resets every 11 years – the next reset will occur sometime in the next few months – and there is evidence that changes in the meridional flow can influence how the magnetic field evolves during a particular cycle.
“We want to continue monitoring variations of the meridional flow,” he said, “so that we can better predict the next solar cycle, when it will come and how active it will be.”
The report was published in the online edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It was co-authored by three other researchers at the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory – senior scientists Rick Bogart and Alexander Kosovichev and research associate Thomas Hartlep – as well as NASA senior scientist Tom Duvall. Phil Scherrer, a professor of physics at Stanford, is the principal investigator of the HMI project and supervised the study.
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Leif adds an excerpt from the paper in an email:
Meridional flow inside the Sun plays an important role in redistributing rotational angular momentum and transporting magnetic flux, and is crucial to our understanding of the strength and duration of sunspot cycles according to flux-transport dynamo theories. At the Sun’s surface and in its shallow interior to at least 30 Mm in depth, the meridional flow is predominantly poleward with a peak speed of approximately 20 m/s.
The poleward plasma flow transports the surface magnetic flux from low latitudes to the polar region, causing the periodic reversals of the global magnetic field, a process important to the prediction of the solar cycles. The speed and variability of the meridional flow also play an important role in determining the strength and duration of the solar cycles, and the unusually long activity minimum at the end of Solar Cycle 23 during 2007–2010 was thought to be associated with an increase of the meridional flow speed during the declining phase of the previous cycle. Therefore, an accurate determination of the meridional flow profile is crucial to our understanding and prediction of solar magnetic activities.
Although the poleward meridional flow at the solar surface and in shallow depths has been well studied, the depth and speed profile of the equatorward return flow, which is expected to exist inside the solar convection zone to meet the mass conservation, largely remains a puzzle. It is generally assumed that the return flow is located near the base of the convection zone, although no convincing evidence had been reported.
The continuous Doppler observations by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager onboard the recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory mission (SDO) allow us to measure and detect the long-sought equatorward flow. Our analysis, which takes into account the systematic center-to-limb effect that was recently found in the local helioseismology analysis techniques, gives a two-dimensional cross-section picture of the meridional flow inside the nearly entire solar convection zone, and reveals a double-cell circulation with the equatorward flow located near the middle of the convection zone.
Figure 1 shows the new picture suggested by the HMI data.
This new picture of the solar interior meridional circulation differs substantially from the previously widely believed picture of a single-cell circulation with the equatorward flow near the bottom of the convection zone [the Conveyor Belt Model]. Through removing a systematic center-to-limb effect that was only recently identified, our analysis corrects and improves the previous solar interior meridional flow profile given by Giles (1999) using a similar analysis procedure.
The new meridional circulation profile poses a challenge to the flux-transport dynamo models, but provides more physical constraints to these models creating a new opportunity to further understand how magnetic field is generated and how magnetic flux is transported inside the Sun. Past dynamo simulations have already demonstrated that a meridional circulation profile with multiple cells might not be able to reproduce the butterfly diagram and the phase relationship between the toroidal and poloidal fields as observed, unless the dynamo model was reconsidered. However, on the other hand, solar convection simulations have shown the possibility of multi-cell circulation with a shallow equatorward flow (e.g.,Miesch et al. 2006; Guerrero et al. 2013), demonstrating that our analysis results are reasonable.
Moreover, a recent dynamo simulation, with the double-cell meridional circulation profile incorporated, showed that the solar magnetic properties could be robustly reproduced after taking into consideration of turbulent pumping, turbulent diffusivity, and other factors (Pipin & Kosovichev 2013). All these studies, together with our observational results, suggest a rethinking of how the solar magnetic flux is generated and transported inside the Sun.
Abstract: http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/774/2/L29
pdf here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/ApJL-2013-Meridional-Flow.pdf
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Leif Svalgaard says:
August 31, 2013 at 2:41 pm
“Granted that a certain minimum level of knowledge is needed and the lack thereof makes discussion difficult.”
Glad we agree on something. I can recommend some references and provide a study guide if you like.
Bart says:
September 1, 2013 at 6:59 pm
“Granted that a certain minimum level of knowledge is needed and the lack thereof makes discussion difficult.” Glad we agree on something. I can recommend some references and provide a study guide if you like.
You are up to your old tricks again. It should have been obvious to you that the lack of knowledge is on your part, but, again, D&K strikes, and you are sliding down the slippery slope of escalating insults. You just can’t help yourself. Your olive branch has already wilted.
Carla says:
September 1, 2013 at 5:28 pm
In the case below what is meant by masking?
Assuming that the rotation is fixed makes it more difficult to detect a signal that is the difference between observation and a fixed form of the rotation, if, in fact, the rotation is not fixed and itself varies with time. By using different rotations law for the early part and for the later part, removes the ‘masking’ and makes the signal stand out better.
Henry@Bart
I am not sure if I showed you before,
at any rate, you never told me what you thought of it.
The 2 graphs here
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
represent almost all of my data on maximum temps. (=Energy-in, which is not the same as energy-out!)
In my best fit, I saw that each quadrant has a time span of about 22 years, on average. One whole wave makes 88 years, as evident from previous investigations:
Persistence of the Gleissberg 88-year solar cycle over the last ˜12,000 years: Evidence from cosmogenic isotopes
Peristykh, Alexei N.; Damon, Paul E.
Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), Volume 108, Issue A1, pp. SSH 1-1, CiteID 1003, DOI 10.1029/2002JA009390
William Arnold suggested that it is mainly the position of the two planets Saturn and Uranus that can be directly linked to the 22 year solar cycle. I looked at this again. At first the dates did not make sense.
Observe from my a-c curves:
1) change of sign: (from warming to cooling and vice versa)
1904, 1950, 1995, 2039
2) maximum speed of cooling or warming = turning points
1927, 1972, 2016
Then I put the dates of the various positions of Uranus and Saturn next to it:
1) we had/have Saturn synodical with Uranus (i.e. in line with each other)
1897, 1942, 1988, 2032
2) we had complete 180 degrees opposition between Saturn and Uranus
1919, 1965, 2009,
In all 7 of my own results & projections, there is an exact 7 or 8 years delay, before “the push/pull ” occurs, that switches the dynamo inside the sun, changing the sign or the direction of warming/cooling.….!!!! Conceivably the gravitational pull of these two planets has some special lob sided character, causing the actual switches. Perhaps Uranus’ apparent side ward motion (inclination of equator by 98 degrees) works like a push-pull trigger. Either way, there is a clear correlation. Other synodical cycles of planets probably have some interference as well either delaying or extending the normal cycle time a little bit. (20-24, as you seem to think) .But in the end the average comes back to about 22 years for each HN solar cycle. So it appears William Arnold’s report was right after all….?(“On the Special Theory of Order”, 1985).
I would be interested to have your thoughts on this, Bart.
Paging the Mr. Vuks,
Found this to be a good article Vuks, to help understand that LOD and sunspots? graph you like to show us. Have you heard of Nils-Axel Mörner?
The title alone should be intriguing to you..
Solar Wind, Earth’s Rotation and Changes in Terrestrial Climate
http://www.sciencedomain.org/uploads/1367405198-5-Revised-manuscript_version1_HIGHLITED.pdf
Nils-Axel Mörner
Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm, Sweden
2013
abstract
..ABSTRACT
Solar variability affects Earth climate. It is proposed that this forcing primarily goes via
the interaction of the Solar Wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere, rather than via changes
in irradiance, which is generally assumed. The cyclic variations in Solar Wind emission
generate corresponding changes in the Earth’s rate of rotation (LOD), as recorded by
correlations between sunspot numbers and LOD-variations. Variations in Earth’s rotation
affect not only the atmospheric circulation but also the ocean circulation. Because the
ocean water has a very high heat storing capacity, changes in the ocean circulation will
affect regional climate. The redistribution of oceanic water masses also gives rise of
irregular changes in sea level over the globe…
from pg. 2
…Another effect of the interaction between the Solar Wind and the Earth’s magnetic
field seems to be that it affects the Earth’s rate of rotation where Solar Minima lead to
accelerations and Solar Maxima to decelerations (as discussed in previous papers; Mörner,
1989a, 1990, 1995a, 1996a, 2010, 2011, 2012).
Several authors have noted a correlation
between sunspot activity and Earth’s rotation (e.g. Kalinin and Kiselev, 1976; Laptukhov,
1980; Golovkov, 1983; Plakhotniuk, 1983; Mazzarella and Palumbo, 1988; Krymskij,
1993; Gu, 1998; Rosen and Salstein, 2000; Kirov et al., 2002; Abarca del Rio et al., 2003;
Mazzarella, 2007, 2008; Mörner, 1996a, 2010, 2011, 2012; Le Mouël et al., 2010) or
Solar-planetary cycles and Earth’s rotation (Mörner, 1984a, 1984b, 1987, 2012; Scafetta,
2010, 2012a, 2012b; Mackey, 2009; Solheim and Humlum, 2011; Wilson, 2011).
Golovkov (1983) plotted Earth’s rate of rotation (spin rate) against sunspot numbers
and found that high spin rates correlated with low sunspot numbers and low spin rates with
high sunspot numbers. Mörner (2010) plotted LOD against sunspot numbers for the period
1831–1995 and found a linear relationship where low LOD values (high spin rate)
correlated with low sunspot numbers adn high LOD values with high sunspot numbers.
Consequently, the Earth’s rotation accelerates at low solar activity and decelerates at high
solar activity….
hopefully I will get a chance to actually read this today..
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2013 at 9:06 pm
“Your olive branch has already wilted.”
Once again, my olive branch was rebuffed by a snarky response. I’m not much into unilateral disarmament. This is a two way street: you will receive the same treatment as you project. As far as D&K is concerned, you know very little of signal processing, and evince no understanding of the things I have tried to explain to you. Next time you write such bilge, look in a mirror.
HenryP says:
September 2, 2013 at 7:38 am
I’m not much into planetary correlations. There are so many cyclic astronomical phenomena, it is not that difficult to find one or two which happen to match up to some degree with observations of the Sun. It is difficult to imagine that a particular cycle exerts dominant influence while others have little effect. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that any of them would have a significant effect, as the means to couple them with solar dynamics is largely limited to infinitesimal tidal effects. I do not rule it out entirely, but I think there are more likely explanations.
I deal a lot with structural elements in my work. The dynamics of complex structures obey particular partial differential equations, the solutions of which are typically expanded as a series ofmode shapes which are modulated by lightly damped, randomly excited, quasi-sinusoidal functions of time. Such solutions are generally applicable to boundary value problems involving partial differential equations. Given the prominently observable quasi-cyclic behavior of solar dynamics, it is very extremely likely, in my estimation, that we are dealing with such a problem here.
Geeps Vuks, seems after reading the above, you must have known Nils-Axel Morner’s work ‘intimately.’
What he states and what we have been seeing in your graphs and charts sounds and looks to be one and the same.
After having read this, I do think that I have a somewhat better understanding on circulations and patterns of both atmosphere and oceans due to changes in LOD.
Bart says:
September 2, 2013 at 12:24 pm
Once again, my olive branch was rebuffed by a snarky response.
I fail to see that pointing out that you have very little knowledge of physics [as you demonstrate in your comments on Quantum Mechanics and on the Sun] and that that makes discussion difficult is a snarky response in any way. The truth is never ‘snarky’. Your response was very much snarky and uncalled for.
evince no understanding of the things I have tried to explain to you.
Those things are well-understood [even by me] but are simply not applicable to the physics at hand. This is where your ignorance and over-confidence show. You have to accept that and live with it [hard as it may be for you]. The issue that you do not understand is that the Sun is not a ‘structure’ in the same sense as, say, an AM-radio or a violin.
Henry@ur momisuglyBart
Thx. I do appreciate you giving me your thoughts on this/
I still think that the chance of me running into such a co-incidence into observed data & best fit (for past and future), is too small. It seems to me there must be a gravitational trigger that pulls an electrical switch; it just might in fact be the lob sided nature of our planetary system, in which case it is natural to expect two planets to be more dominant.
Either way, I wish we could all work together….for the common good of all mankind.
7 billion people count on us getting it right….now.
the future, as far as I see it, still looks bleak for 2021-2028 @ur momisugly > [40] latitude
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/dust_storms.shtml
Solar Wind, Earth’s Rotation and Changes in Terrestrial Climate
http://www.sciencedomain.org/uploads/1367405198-5-Revised-manuscript_version1_HIGHLITED.pdf
Nils-Axel Mörner
Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm, Sweden
2013
……Another effect of the interaction between the Solar Wind and the Earth’s magnetic
field seems to be that it affects the Earth’s rate of rotation where Solar Minima lead to
accelerations and Solar Maxima to decelerations
(as discussed in previous papers; Mörner, 1989a, 1990, 1995a, 1996a, 2010, 2011, 2012).
Several authors have noted a correlation between sunspot activity and Earth’s rotation
(e.g. Kalinin and Kiselev, 1976; Laptukhov, 980; Golovkov, 1983; Plakhotniuk, 1983;
Mazzarella and Palumbo, 1988; Krymskij, 1993; Gu, 1998; Rosen and Salstein, 2000;
Kirov et al., 2002; Abarca del Rio et al., 2003; Mazzarella, 2007, 2008;
Mörner, 1996a, 2010, 2011, 2012; Le Mouël et al., 2010)
or Solar-planetary cycles and Earth’s rotation (Mörner, 1984a, 1984b, 1987, 2012;
Scafetta, 2010, 2012a, 2012b; Mackey, 2009; Solheim and Humlum, 2011; Wilson, 2011)…
@ur momisugly HenryP, if the above is correct about Earth’s rotation rate, speeding up during minimum solar periods, wouldn’t you think that All the Jovian planets might also be speeding up at this time?
If speeding up, does that also mean there might be some minute changes in orbital lengths? And in the longer run, leading to more elliptical orbital patterns?
Just for fun, think about all the planets bobbing above and below the heliocurrent sheet (which is extra wavy at minimum and in minimum periods such as now will stay wavy.) Sounds like wavy turbulence to me..
see figure 5 on page 6
http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf
“I fail to see that pointing out that you have very little knowledge of physics [as you demonstrate in your comments on Quantum Mechanics and on the Sun]…”
Meh. The usual bluster. Typical. You didn’t even know satellites experience time dilation in free-fall. Really, a dismal showing overall.
Very interesting comments. Have you ever considered investigating the beginning of the where the magnetic energy comes from? I have and it was found to be coming from the active Electron. My Book:Climate Change-Explained by Magnetism? ISBN978646477229 explains a lot of what is being discussed here, and I ask you to also visit; ttsw@bigblog.com.au. Thankyou.
Bart says:
September 2, 2013 at 9:18 pm
You didn’t even know satellites experience time dilation in free-fall.
Time dilation requires two observers moving relative to each other or in different gravitational fields. For a single observer there is no time dilation. The local experience of time passing never actually changes for anyone regardless of their motion. If two observers are in relative motion the point of view of each of them will be that it is the other’s clock that is ticking at a slower rate. See, you display your ignorance again. The other example was your insistence that Quantum Mechanics is just a bunch of empirical rules. There are no empirical rules, everything can be derived from deep mathematical considerations, such as this: the state of a quantum mechanical system is given by a vector in a complex vector space H with Hermitian inner product, and this: the observables of a quantum mechanical system are given by self-adjoint linear operators on H, and so on. But let all that slide: you don’t need to have deep knowledge of everything [even if you believe you have] in order to function. I used the example of my incompetence at violin playing. You show your incompetence at physics. No stigmas attached to either.
Thomas Watson says:
September 2, 2013 at 9:45 pm
Have you ever considered investigating the beginning of where the magnetic energy comes from?
Yes: http://www.leif.org/research/The-Origin-of-Magnetic-Fields.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 2, 2013 at 10:12 pm
“For a single observer there is no time dilation.”
Thank you, Master of the Obvious. The necessity of multiple observers is built into the very name “Relativity”, so you’re just being argumentative to cover up your failure. Your statement here was dead wrong.
“There are no empirical rules, everything can be derived from deep mathematical considerations, such as blah, blah, blah”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You’re spouting mathematical rules which have been developed specifically to match the empirical evidence. But, the mathematical rules do not tell you why. It’s just math.
Do you really think you know this subject better than Richard Feynman? You are in a very deep hole. Stop digging.
Bart says:
September 2, 2013 at 11:35 pm
You have no idea what you are talking about. You’re spouting mathematical rules which have been developed specifically to match the empirical evidence.
Science must always agree with observations. This is very different from just saying that QM is a bunch of empirical rules. Again you are trashing around. I have noticed that you have brought precisely zero to the table in this thread. The usual nonsense about holes, digging, pitiful, etc is just boiler plate desperation; we have seen that before and it is hollow. It must be hard for you to accept that you know little of the relevant physics, and that you do not understand what Feynman meant. And you will probably continue to misuse WUWT instead of taking your unmasking as a man.
All the talk on this board is nothng but talk and everyone thinking he/she and only he/she is correct, including myself.
Talk is cheap(leif) very much so and you can come up with all your counters to all of the research and theories that run contrary to the way you think, but in the end it is all MEANINGLESS.
What is going to matter is which projections and predictions turn out right and which ones turn out wrong.
You can say that does not matter either which will make you Leif , completely obsolete.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 3, 2013 at 8:33 am
What is going to matter is which projections and predictions turn out right
Agree completely, and I am happy to report that I have been doing quite well in the prediction business http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf