The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center released their January 2014 solar data, and it has one small surprise, the 10.7 radio flux is the highest ever in cycle 24, the other metrics, not so much.
SSN has been about where the much adjusted prediction line says it should be for the last four months.
The 10.7cm radio flux hits a new high.
Meanwhile, the Ap magnetic index continues its slump as it has since October 2005, bumping along the bottom.
However I am thinking, Leif, that we do observe different physical/geographic effects, possibly leading to a firmer Antarctic polar vortex. But probably more breakouts than northerners have noticed, and similar solar-induced changes in polar-equatorial gradients…… Thanks for the pdf. Brett Keane
Brett Keane says:
February 4, 2014 at 5:24 pm
probably more breakouts than northerners have noticed
There are ‘southerners’ too. We have good data back for almost half a century.
@rgbatduke says:
February 4, 2014 at 7:40 am
Another fine post, but… whew!
lsvalgaard says:
February 3, 2014 at 8:55 pm
Brant Ra says:
February 3, 2014 at 8:46 pm
I said the sun indirectly caused the polar vortex. I was wrong. The sun is directly responsible in that the solar wind interaction with the IMF affects that magnetosphere and thereby affecting the polar vortex.
And you are still wrong. There is no evidence for that. On the contrary: the solar wind interaction is the same in both hemispheres,…..
——————–
Ya know, we seem to think that Earth’s magnetic field and magnetosphere is like static or something, standing still. But it is not. It’s part of a rotating body and that’s an important factor here too, twisting up the fields as it orbits within an interplanatary field with daily changes in pressures and densitys. Not to mention that whole solar cycle dealo going on..
Dr S., I think you should watch this NASA depiction of the Halloween storm effect on the radiation belts and Earth’s magnetic field/magnetosphere which is located within. There actually appears a vortex structure around the poles during this storm. So maybe there just might be some processes that are occuring that are not so well understood..yet.. eh
Movie description:
Published on May 17, 2013
This scientific visualization relies on data from the SAMPEX mission, which observed particles in the Radiation Belts during a large solar storm in October 2003. The movie clearly shows just how much the outer belt can swell in extreme conditions. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Don’t worry about that outer belt watch the polar and equatorial reactions, wow..
http://youtu.be/Zp8QB_Q1FrY
Hi MarkW. First see my response to PeterB in Indianpolis at February 4, 2014 at 5:13 pm.
The Fed does not increase the money supply. When the government spends, via congressional appropriation, it is putting new money into the system since all new US dollars can only be issued (created) by the federal government. Sometime after this spending, the US Treasury issues treasury securities in the same amount, which are sold at auction on the 15th of every month. They are usually gone in about five nanoseconds because they are the safest financial instrument in the world, and everyone with more than $250Gs in their bank account (the FDIC insurance limit) wants them because they are risk-free, unlike banks. So, basically, the money supply rebalances itself. (It’s a little more complicated than this, but this is how it works.) The sale of these treasury securities (bills, notes, bonds) has the unfortunate name of the federal government “borrowing” from the people or China; however, nothing could be further from the truth. The US Treasury issues treasury securities. No one else.
Inflation is caused when there is full employment, everyone has money in their bank accounts, and there aren’t enough goods and services produced in the economy to meet the need. The classic definition. Or it’s caused by cost or supply shocks, like a rapid rise in the price of oil (again, that is gamed by futures traders in my opinion, which Congress refuses to fix). Or if asset prices rise and, yes, banks have been part of that.
Again, read my answer to PeterB. Of course people have an interest in paying less taxes. State and local govts, not the federal government, need revenue to survive. They can’t create money out of thin air like the federal government does. State and local govts must get this revenue from a state- or local govt-run business, tariffs, or they get it from taxes. The traditional way for states to get taxes was property taxes. Since 1930, property taxes in California have gone from 67% of state and local govt budgets to 17%. Who makes up that shortfall and how (because the need for revenue doesn’t go away; in fact, it goes up with time)? Increased income taxes, increased sales taxes, taxes on this, taxes on that, and the people who can least afford it, the vast amount of poor and lower middle class.
And don’t forget, property taxes can be neither deducted from, nor are they indexed according to income. Everyone in a community or city pays the same rate. The ultra-rich pay their fair share when that’s the measure. Not so with income tax, both state and federal. If you know what you’re doing, you can get that reduced to zilch, especially if you’re rich enough to stick your money in a foundation.
I am not saying raise property taxes; I rail against mine all the time. But I am saying that by getting people to believe that reducing property taxes put them ahead was a fool’s game. It’s like a teeter-totter. Property taxes went down; every other tax went up: at the state and local govt level. And people took the biggest hit on their income. If someone worked hard, made a lot of money, and still lived in the same house during the financial ascent, they lost more than they needed to. Warren Buffett was no fool. He still lives in the same house he bought in 1955; he just renovated it.
Carla says:
February 4, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Ya know, we seem to think that Earth’s magnetic field and magnetosphere is like static or something, standing still. But it is not. It’s part of a rotating body and that’s an important factor here too, twisting up the fields
No, the magnetic field in the Earth and in the magnetosphere are separated by an electrical insulator, namely the air you breathe, and magnetic field lines have no individual existence in an insulator so the the rotation of the Earth does not ‘twist up’ the field. It is just like spinning a toy magnet in your hand. That does not twist anything, which would serve to make the spinning harder and harder [which does not happen].
Dr S., I think you should watch this NASA depiction of the Halloween storm effect on the radiation belts and Earth’s magnetic field/magnetosphere which is located within. There actually appears a vortex structure around the poles during this storm.
There are several vortices in the polar caps. One is even named after me, so you may assume that I know a bit about polar vortices in the ionosphere.
See – owe to Rich says:
February 4, 2014 at 2:34 pm
“So, Leif, what you are saying, since 0.685 > 0.6, is that even though NOAA are over-counting specks they are not doing it as badly as SIDC?”
lsvalgaard says:
February 4, 2014 at 3:39 pm
“SIDC has never overcounted. They started undercounting about 1999 and their count is about 12% too low.”
I see that another person has not been paying attention /sarc
I wonder if “See – owe to Rich” is pointing out the specks classed as sunspot groups. The hand drawn records of every speck… awesome!
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 6:41 pm
I wonder if “See – owe to Rich” is pointing out the specks classed as sunspot groups. The hand drawn records of every speck… awesome!
Every single [i.e. not part of a larger group] ‘speck’ must be [and has been since 1894] counted as a sunspot group. You are not only not paying attention, you also do not know what you talking about.
Carla,
Earths atmosphere is not an electrical insulator, on a planetary scale. Leif, that is nonsense.
Ieif,
That’s if you could see it.
Excuse me, Dr. S., one more solar related thingy on my mind, before going back up this thread to finish reading comments..
Talk about your pattern recognition lol.. Check this out.
Ran across this article describing a protostar with a “hourglass” magnetic field topology. Like only the second one they have found. hmm
Have a look at the field topology. Looks like a dent and offset in the nose and dent in the tail. Sound kinda familiar. Please do notice the axis and the outflow..
figure 2 page 6
The Magnetic Field Morphology of the Class 0 Protostar
L1157-mm
24 April 2013
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.6739.pdf
Ian W. Stephens1, Leslie W. Looney1,2, Woojin Kwon1,3, Charles L. H. Hull4, Richard L.
Plambeck4, Richard M. Crutcher1, Nicholas Chapman5, Giles Novak5, Jacqueline
Davidson6, John E. Vaillancourt7, Hiroko Shinnaga8, Tristan Matthews5
ABSTRACT
We present the first detection of polarization around the Class 0 low-mass
protostar L1157-mm at two different wavelengths. We show polarimetric maps
at large scales (10′′ resolution at 350 μm) from the SHARC-II Polarimeter and
at smaller scales (1.2′′-4.5′′ at 1.3 mm) from the Combined Array for Research
in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). The observations are consistent with
each other and show inferred magnetic field lines aligned with the outflow. The
CARMA observations suggest a full hourglass magnetic field morphology centered
about the core; this is only the second well-defined hourglass detected around a
low-mass protostar to date. We apply two different methods to CARMA po-
larimetric observations to estimate the plane-of-sky magnetic field magnitude,
finding values of 1.4 and 3.4 mG.
Fig. 2.— Hourglass morphology of L1157 with the red line showing the axis of the hourglass
and the black line showing the center of the outflow from Bachiller et al. (2001). Cyan and
red vectors are the same as Figure 1…………………………………………………………………………
Now check out the heliotail as shown through ENA from IBEX.. looks to have an ‘hourglass’ shape and has an offset as well….more clues to the puzzles in the stamp collection..
http://youtu.be/BhAzMdoOe5E?t=1m33s
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 6:52 pm
Earths atmosphere is not an electrical insulator, on a planetary scale. Leif, that is nonsense.
Again, you do not know what you are talking about. The issue is whether or not the magnetic field is frozen enough into the air to connect with the field in the magnetosphere such as to be able to twist it, and the air is too good an insulator for that.
Up in the ionosphere and in the inner magnetosphere the conductivity is high enough that to confine plasma to magnetic field lines so that the Earth is surrounded by a ‘cloud’ of cold plasma corotating with the Earth – the plasmasphere. But this is another story which you can read here:
http://vlf.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/spasojevicDissertation.pdf
Carla says:
February 4, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Ran across this article describing a protostar with a “hourglass” magnetic field topology. Like only the second one they have found. hmm
Interesting, but not relevant to the topic.
lsvalgaard says:
February 4, 2014 at 7:52 pm
Magnets still operate in a vacuum, or a ‘non-vacuum’ a small magnet can still impose a magnetic gate on a larger nearby magnetic force.
plasma is the stuff that interacts with the crap your pushing.
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm
Magnets still operate in a vacuum
As well as in the non-conducting air. In both cases, rotating or spinning the magnet does not ‘wind up’ or twist its magnetic field.
lsvalgaard says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:24 pm
“In both cases, rotating or spinning the magnet does not ‘wind up’ or twist its magnetic field.
Absolutely not.
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:35 pm
“In both cases, rotating or spinning the magnet does not ‘wind up’ or twist its magnetic field.”
Absolutely not.
Does not make sense as it stands. Are you saying that the spinning magnetic winds up its field or not?
When scale becomes involved, forces are always interacting, keep that in mind.
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:47 pm
When scale becomes involved, forces are always interacting, keep that in mind.
You are not responsive to the issue at hand.
lsvalgaard says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:40 pm
Does not make sense as it stands.
What “Does not make sense” ya fucking arse hole? twisted cunt!!#
lsvalgaard says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:50 pm
“You are not responsive to the issue at hand.”
Another lie, what’s new?
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:52 pm
What “Does not make sense” your response to:
“In both cases, rotating or spinning the magnet does not ‘wind up’ or twist its magnetic field.”
Absolutely not.
Are you disagreeing with what I said or agreeing with it that ‘the magnet absolutely does not wind up is field’?
Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:59 pm
“You are not responsive to the issue at hand.”
Another lie, what’s new?
Sort of proves my point, don’t you think?
@Sparks says:
February 4, 2014 at 8:52 pm
Language WAY OVER the top.
F. Ross says:
It needed saying! a bit of a roasting among friends did no one any harm!