While we’ve known about this for quite some time at WUWT, going back to August 2013, the story is now starting to make the rounds in the MSM.
And, NASA has created a cool visualization of the event. Video follows. From the NASA video description:
This visualization shows the position of the sun’s magnetic fields from January 1997 to December 2013. The field lines swarm with activity: The magenta lines show where the sun’s overall field is negative and the green lines show where it is positive. A region with more electrons is negative, the region with less is labeled positive. Additional gray lines represent areas of local magnetic variation.
The entire sun’s magnetic polarity, flips approximately every 11 years — though sometimes it takes quite a bit longer — and defines what’s known as the solar cycle. The visualization shows how in 1997, the sun shows the positive polarity on the top, and the negative polarity on the bottom. Over the next 12 years, each set of lines is seen to creep toward the opposite pole eventually showing a complete flip. By the end of the movie, each set of lines are working their way back to show a positive polarity on the top to complete the full 22 year magnetic solar cycle.
At the height of each magnetic flip, the sun goes through periods of more solar activity, during which there are more sunspots, and more eruptive events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. The point in time with the most sunspots is called solar maximum.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/PFSS
The WUWT solar reference page has this revealing plot from Dr. Leif Svalgaard:
Solar Polar Fields – Mt. Wilson and Wilcox Combined -1966 to Present
Leif Svalgaard – Click the pic to view at source
Bob Weber says:
December 30, 2013 at 8:38 pm
I was thinking maybe the 6-hour to 1-day TSI average may miss short-term peaks that occur during earth-directed solar flares. Are you aware of anomalous TSI readings during flaring events?
From this link http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/At_last,_the_EUV_Spectrum “New “Sun-as-a-star” observations of solar visible and EUV emission have revolutionized our understanding of the energetics of solar flares. Figure 1 of an earlier Nugget shows the breakthrough observations (from the SORCE satellite) of the flare SOL2003-10-28, a GOES X17.2 “superflare.” Viewing the Sun as a star (i.e., measuring the total solar irradiance or solar constant), the SORCE radiometer found a trifling 0.03% increase for this huge flare. “
Leif writes: “the SORCE radiometer found a trifling 0.03% increase for this huge flare. ”
I’m curious if theer is an guestimate of how many solar flares are missed. If they miss 3 such flares in a year, that would be equal to the approximate % change from solar min to max. Not insignificant, I think.
Galene: No, let’s not forget about it. 0.03% is what it is. It provides the proportion needed to comprehend the scale of the affect of any energy missed or over sampled. The sampling methodology probably does not miss anything as it may over sample solar flares and under sample non flare irradiance as often as the converse. Statistically, my bet is that it’s a wash.
By your thinking, 1000 pounds of meat is a lot. But if that 1000 pounds it’s insignificant towards ending hunger in a small country where they need to consume 1000,000 pounds per day to keep from being hungry.
TSI average may miss short-term peaks that occur during earth-directed solar flares. Are you aware of anomalous TSI readings during flaring events?
It is interesting to note that the Ap index’s maximum daily values, reflecting the impact of the geomagnetic storms (related to solar flares & CMEs) , have a clearly pronounced 365 day component
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ApMax.htm
According to the Ap index definition perhaps it shouldn’t be so prominent, the origin of the other two components are less obvious, but the sum coincides with another known Earth’s orbital property.
Mario Lento says:
December 30, 2013 at 10:57 pm
I’m curious if theer is an guestimate of how many solar flares are missed. If they miss 3 such flares in a year, that would be equal to the approximate % change from solar min to max.
This was the biggest flare in the space age, and no flares are missed. Furthermore the trifling increase only lasted a few minutes.
Thank you Leif: I posted earlier that I’d be pretty confident that not much of anything was lost in the sampling. Again, thank you for educating me.
Leif, TSI still does not seem like a comprehensive representation of that which it is attempting to describe. If IR flux is low and UV high being the “same” TSI as a higher IR flux and lower UV flux, it would seem such a description lacks rigor and predictive capability.
“…one measures TSI by letting raw sunlight fall on an absorbing surface and measuring how much it heats up [actually, the real measurement is how much we have to heat (by a well-calibrated electric current) that surface to keep its temperature constant”
>>>>
GREAT info!
!) TOA is sometimes considered to be about 200 miles above Earth’s surface. Are the satellites measuring TSI that low, or is there some “calibration” of satellite data?
2) For purposes of TSI measurement, what is the altitude of TOA considered?
3) Does the satellite average include all the orbital measurements, including when it is “shadowed” by the Earth, or does it only record “snapshots” when it is directly “in-line” between Earth and Sun?
TIA
As much as I am loathe to extrapolate and talk about ‘trends’ in empirical data, it seems to me that the evolution of the peak amplitude (as seen in Dr. Svalgaard’s chart) of the solar magnetic field deserves scrutiny.
dan says:
December 31, 2013 at 6:51 am
Leif, TSI still does not seem like a comprehensive representation of that which it is attempting to describe. If IR flux is low and UV high being the “same” TSI as a higher IR flux and lower UV flux, it would seem such a description lacks rigor and predictive capability.
What is important is how much TSI can heat the Earth. As TSI is deduced by directly measuring how much it heats the instrument it would seem that TSI is a rigorously determined quantity.
geran says:
December 31, 2013 at 7:37 am
!) TOA is sometimes considered to be about 200 miles above Earth’s surface. Are the satellites measuring TSI that low, or is there some “calibration” of satellite data?
The satellites are higher, one is at 645 km another one at 1,500,000 km. The measurements are calibrated three ways: 1) adjusted for changing distance to the Sun, 2) adjusted for sensor degradation [by having multiple sensors with different exposure times], 3) by comparison with radiation standards in the laboratory.
2) For purposes of TSI measurement, what is the altitude of TOA considered?
The TOA is a concept not used nor relevant for TSI measurements as the satellites simply are high enough above the atmosphere.
3) Does the satellite average include all the orbital measurements, including when it is “shadowed” by the Earth, or does it only record “snapshots” when it is directly “in-line” between Earth and Sun?
No data is taken when in shadow [some satellites are never shadowed] otherwise all observations are included.
lsvalgaard says:
December 31, 2013 at 9:30 am
>>>>>
Cool! That helps my understanding immensely. Thanks again.
Lief , so the northern hemisphere of the sun ‘flipped’ a while back , has the southern hemisphere ‘flipped’ yet…also, is it possible for one of the hemisphere’s to ‘slip’ into a neutral phase ? I would like to thank you for sharing with us your immense knowledge of the sun and it’s workings.
Dominic Manginell says:
December 31, 2013 at 10:57 am
Lief , so the northern hemisphere of the sun ‘flipped’ a while back , has the southern hemisphere ‘flipped’ yet…also, is it possible for one of the hemisphere’s to ‘slip’ into a neutral phase ? I would like to thank you for sharing with us your immense knowledge of the sun and it’s workings.
I dislike the dumbing down that NASA et al. are doing with the ‘flipping’ business. The reversal of the poles is a slow, drawn out process that can take a year or more with at time multiple reversals of the Reversal. To add to the problem, the poles ‘hide’ behind the limb of the Sun because of a 7 degree tilt of the sun’s axis. We see the South pole best in March [and not at all in September]. If the Southpole looks reversed in three month I would say that the poles have finally reversed.
Leif,
I have written a wire frame modeling program in order to simulate the reversal of the poles, and I am able to model this process very precisely by manipulating the animation xyz variables to control the rotation, time and oscillation of a wire frame sphere.
I think it is possible to get an exact formula for the timing of future solar cycles with this model as simulations of past cycles lead into future cycles. The program itself is very basic looking as all the work is done in the coding.
This is the program.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/wiremodel.jpeg
And this (I hope) will give a better idea of the model.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/swapwire.png
BTW Have happy new year..
That’s a pretty scary graph.
Time to buy snow shoe manufacturer futures.
I’ve been wondering today what those electrons are doing. Since NASA didn’t really say, I suppose they have the “choice” to go inwards, outwards, or just hang around in the photosphere and corona. Do they always do the same thing all the time? As NASA said:
“… The field lines swarm with activity: The magenta lines show where the sun’s overall field is negative and the green lines show where it is positive. A region with more electrons is negative, the region with less is labeled positive. Additional gray lines represent areas of local magnetic variation.”
What are the measurable difference(s) in electron speed, flow direction, density, and energy parameters between the magenta negative and positive green “field lines”.
I timestretched this video twice by 4X ea (to 1:44 & 6:54 min) in 1080 HD. Both are useful. If anyone asks to see both versions, I’ll happily upload them to my channel. You can easily see the same features with your video player by moving the player time index slider fast or slow with your device pointer (mouse).
The first thing I noticed watching this video was how the overall magnetic field direction angle rocked and rolled all over the place as time went on, except during solar minimum, when the imagery appeared “stable” with a “balanced” magnetic dipoles, as, for example, during the several hundred day spotless period that defined the last minimum. Also the number of magnetic poles changed frequently from dipole to quadrapole, to a crazed multipole configuration and back again.
It would be beyond fabulous if NASA could make the same visualization with DAILY frames, where we could really see what all the Earth-facing active regions were doing, and going one step further, include the other side of the sun in a different video with both sides “side-by-side”. Then the next step is obviously a realtime image viewable online, clearly followed by a live 3D hologram for your smartphone/TV.
One thing I noticed years ago was how it appears that the sunspot areas tend to pull the plasma away from coronal hole areas. The lack of plasma cover over the coronal hole probably facilitates the higher speed particle streams regularly seen from coronal holes (no interference?)
Finally, from memory, I noticed a strong correspondence between the “crazed multipole configuration” periods, and some of the more outstanding solar activity periods that also corresponded to times on earth when we had some rather memorable extreme weather events. I have records, so it won’t be hard to corroborate, just time-consuming.
Happy New Year all.
Bob Weber says:
December 31, 2013 at 6:40 pm
The magenta lines show where the sun’s overall field is negative and the green lines show where it is positive. A region with more electrons is negative, the region with less is labeled positive.
The NASA PR-people got this wrong. There are not any more electrons in a ‘negative region’. The statement is complete nonsense.
No wonder… you’d think they’d try a little harder to better explain what we’re seeing. There’s always next year.
BTW, the Oct/Nov 2003 flares, especially the X17, with subsequent observable effects was my wake-up call to solar activity. Right then. That’s a story for another day.
Food for thought: here’s a comment from Piers’ blog today that echoes what I’ve said here myself:
On 31 Dec 2013, Rohan (subscriber), London wrote:
hmmm… well from what I can see on spaceweather, the solar activity is being a bit tardy with its escalation so Piers forecast may come a bit late. Nonetheless, it has been noticeably colder here where I live for the past couple of days, not mild at all. Also I have noticed (again past 2 or 3 days) that the sun has been most unbearably bright, even brighter than on a clear hot summers day! I believe in Piers methods and even if by a couple of days, his forecast will happen. Keep the faith
Bob;
Surely Sun brightness has to do with atmospheric clarity, possibly with decreased scattering of blue wavelengths, rather than any perceptible solar variation.
lsvalgaard says:
December 31, 2013 at 7:04 pm
Bob Weber says:
December 31, 2013 at 6:40 pm
The magenta lines show where the sun’s overall field is negative and the green lines show where it is positive. A region with more electrons is negative, the region with less is labeled positive.
The NASA PR-people got this wrong. There are not any more electrons in a ‘negative region’. The statement is complete nonsense.
+++++++++++
Thank you for pointing this out. I glossed over it originally, and sort of scratched my head. It’s good to know for sure that the sun is not a big hot battery tumbling anode over cathode.
Brian H – thanks for that. I see that Piers mentioned the same in so many words to Rohan’s observation. Maybe the right question is “do any solar activity increases contribute in any way to atmospheric clarity, and the subjectively perceived solar intensity (brightness) at ground level?”
From the “solar constant” page by the often-bashed but still useful wikipedia :
“Solar irradiance[edit]
The actual direct solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere fluctuates by about 6.9% during a year (from 1.412 kW/m² in early January to 1.321 kW/m² in early July) due to the Earth’s varying distance from the Sun, and typically by much less than 0.1% from day to day. Thus, for the whole Earth (which has a cross section of 127,400,000 km²), the power is 1.740×1017 W, plus or minus 3.5%. The solar constant does not remain constant over long periods of time (see Solar variation), but over a year the solar constant varies much less than the solar irradiance measured at the top of the atmosphere. This is because the solar constant is measured at a fixed distance of 1 AU while the solar irradiance will be affected by the ellipticity of the Earth’s orbit.
The Earth receives a total amount of radiation determined by its cross section (π·RE²), but as it rotates this energy is distributed across the entire surface area (4·π·RE²). Hence the average incoming solar radiation, taking into account the angle at which the rays strike and that at any one moment half the planet does not receive any solar radiation, is one-fourth the solar constant (approximately 340 W/m²). At any given moment, the amount of solar radiation received at a location on the Earth’s surface depends on the state of the atmosphere, the location’s latitude, and the time of day.
Apparent magnitude[edit]
The solar constant includes all wavelengths of solar electromagnetic radiation, not just the visible light (see Electromagnetic spectrum). It is positively correlated with the apparent magnitude of the Sun which is −26.8. The solar constant and the magnitude of the Sun are two methods of describing the apparent brightness of the Sun, though the magnitude is based on the Sun’s visual output only.
The Sun’s total radiation[edit]
The angular diameter of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/11,700 radians (about 18 arc-seconds), meaning the solid angle of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/175,000,000 of a steradian. Thus the Sun emits about 2.2 billion times the amount of radiation that is caught by Earth, in other words about 3.86×1026 watts.[7]
Past variations in solar irradiance[edit]
Space-based observations of solar irradiance started in 1978. These measurements show that the solar constant is not constant. It varies with the 11-year sunspot solar cycle. When going further back in time, one has to rely on irradiance reconstructions, using sunspots for the past 400 years or cosmogenic radionuclides for going back 10,000 years. Such reconstructions show that solar irradiance varies with distinct periodicities. These cycles are: 11 years (Schwabe), 88 years (Gleisberg cycle), 208 years (DeVries cycle) and 1,000 years (Eddy cycle)…”
Two good reads on TSI science/problems/interpretations here:
http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/1366-and-all-that-the-secret-history-of-total-solar-irradiance/
http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/inventions-and-deceptions-total-solar-irradiance/
SIDC sunspot number for December 2013 is a bit higher than expected at 90.3
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
second highest of the SC24 (96.7 for Nov 2011). It is possible that SC24 hasn’t peaked yet.