The solar data from the NOAA Space Weather prediction center has been posted, and like the global temperature, there isn’t much change. Sunspot numbers are down slightly, but still up from most of 2012/2013. The double peak looks more prominent.
Solar radio flux shows a similar double peak pattern.
And the Ap Magnetic index is down 6 units, and continues to bump along the bottom compared to the last solar cycle. The solar dynamo continues to be sluggish.
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As the field intensity of the magnetic flux tubes continues to decline the magnetic flux tubes which rise up from the solar tachocline to form sunspots on the surface of the sun, are now torn apart by the turbulent forces in the solar convection zone. The result initially is many small sunspots (pores) hence the increase in sunspot number which is also helped by the use of magnogram enhanced images of the sun.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_4500.jpg
(See this link for a magnogram enhanced image of the sun)
http://www.solen.info/solar/
It appears the silly game of enhancing the sunspot number is coming to an end. If the trend (reduction in magnetic field strength of the magnetic tubes that form sunspots) continues the turbulent forces in the solar convection zone will tear the magnetic flux tubes apart and there will only be magnetic flux residue on the surface of the sun. i.e. No sunspots.
It is interesting that the solar northern polar field appears to be collapsing and the average solar polar magnetic field intensity continues to decline cycle by cycle.
http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html
predicting it does not make it untrue
I have been tracking Solar and Temps in areas for some time now.
I have noticed when weather conditions are stable without large storms or active weather patterns, surface temps and Solar TSI spikes are are noticeable.
Big Spike in TSI since October showed up in connection with PDO numbers in same time frame.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NJSnowFan/status/453473352980508673/photo/1
I have noticed the PDO reacts very quickly to TSI spikes.
The AMO has a 5 to 25:year lag time. I feel it is because of the deep circulation cycle it has with the Gulf stream.
Leif
“People rarely do. My bet is that they will blame the sunspot counters for counting ‘specks’ that Rudolf Wolf would never have counted…”
Ya, I like to say the climate cant see spots. It sees TSI
lsvalgaard says:
April 8, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Robert of Ottawa says:
April 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm
I am fascinated by the apparent “twin peak” of cycle 23 and 24. Is it due to phase shifting of two internal cycles, or phase differences between North and South Solar hemisphere?
Phase shift between North and South. Cycle 14 did the same: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-24-Groups-Months.png
—————————-
Excuse me eh, eh, eh just clearing my throat..
There may be some ‘other’ phase shifts related to the solar cycle progression that are also occurring, HEMISPHERICALLY.
Time-Variation of ENA Flux Observed by IBEX at the Heliospheric Poles: Has the Recovery Begun?
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMSH23C2128R
Reisenfeld, D. B.; Janzen, P. H.; Bzowski, M.; Dayeh, M. A.; Demajistre, R.; Funsten, H. O.; Fuselier, S.; Kubiak, M. A.; McComas, D. J.; Schwadron, N.; Sokol, J. M.
…The magnitude and rate of decline was shown to be consistent with the observed decline in solar wind dynamic pressure during the previous solar minimum, once the lag time between solar wind observations at 1 AU and the return time of ENAs from the heliosheath was taken into account (Reisenfeld et al. ApJ, 747, 2012). When it became apparent in 2010 that the solar wind dynamic pressure was beginning to recover, it was expected that within a couple of years, the decline in ENA flux should cease and begin to turn around as well. Numerical models of an asymmetric heliosphere (e.g. Pogorelov et al. ApJ, 668, 2007; Opher et al. SSR, 143, 2009, and others) indicate that the distance to the termination shock (TS) should be significantly shorter toward the south ecliptic pole than toward the north. Thus it was expected that the turnaround in ENA flux should occur first at the south pole, then the north. Another expectation was that the ENA flux should begin recovery at the highest energies first, since such ENAs have a shorter travel time toward IBEX. The latest observations show that for ENAs arriving from the south pole, the data are consistent with a flattening in the ENA flux. At the north pole, there is no indication yet of a turnaround or flattening of the ENA flux, which is consistent with the expected greater distance to the TS…
Just want us to be aware of the our local interstellar neighborhood,(surrounding the heliosphere bubble) as it begins to unfold before our eyes…
It is interesting our heliospheric dent in the nose and consequential asymmetry in the northern and southern hemispheres on BOTH ends of the heliospheric bubble. Gees if it is East and West ends what is happening over the Northern and Southern ends…
Good Night
Maybe the sun can use some of that ENA flux and convert it into some solar fluxes……………..
William Astley says:
April 8, 2014 at 6:46 pm
As the field intensity of the magnetic flux tubes continues to decline the magnetic flux tubes which rise up from the solar tachocline to form sunspots on the surface of the sun, are now torn apart by the turbulent forces in the solar convection zone.
The flux tubes are always torn apart, nor, 50 years ago, 300 years ago, always.
The result initially is many small sunspots (pores) hence the increase in sunspot number which is also helped by the use of magnogram enhanced images of the sun.
There is no increase of small sunspots. On the contrary, the small spots are disappearing.
It appears the silly game of enhancing the sunspot number is coming to an end.
There is no such ‘game’. Only in your imagination.
james says:
April 8, 2014 at 6:55 pm
predicting it does not make it untrue
But knowing how sunspots are counted makes it untrue. If anything, we count too few sunspots.
Carla says:
April 8, 2014 at 8:49 pm
There may be some ‘other’ phase shifts related to the solar cycle progression that are also occurring, …Just want us to be aware of the our local interstellar neighborhood
Nothing that goes on out there affects the Sun or us in any way.
Well sun spots do have an affect on our climate. They deflect sub atomic gallactic rays from the earth, and therefore prevent as much cloud formation and rain of course. I learned this years ago when our lecturer told us, that sun spots affect rainfall, when Perth was suffering a water shortage. Sydney built a salination plant to compensate, that was run by 65 wind turbines, that drove the locals crazy. They’ve now closed it, I heard. He also said the rain would return when the sun became quiet again.
The current shape of the polar vortex at a height of 100 hPa. Galactic radiation has no effect on the circulation?
http://oi62.tinypic.com/ip8gp4.jpg
Low solar activity.
Region Liczba
plam słonecznych Klasa
Magn. Klasa
Krajobrazy
2026 16 β EAI
2027 3 β CAO
2029 1 α HRX
2030 3 β DAO
2031 7 β DAO
2032 4 β DAI
Sorry.
http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en
Steven Mosher says:
April 8, 2014 at 7:53 pm
You are wrong. Should I say, as always?
TSI is less than meaningless, if that is possible.
What matters are the spectrum differences, as you would know if you actually wanted to keep up with the latest science rather than spewing worse than worthless lies, like your colleges on the CAGW gravy train.
UV flux at the top of the atmosphere correlates with surface temperature, but of course your cult can’t handle that truth.
Catherine Ronconi says:
April 8, 2014 at 10:02 pm
UV flux at the top of the atmosphere correlates with surface temperature
UV flux at the top of the atmosphere correlates well with TSI…
All this discussion (dare I say bickering?) about sunspot counting leads me to wonder if a less subjective “count” could be made. It won’t soon help in interpreting past methods, but if objective and reproducible, it might be of help in future.
Here are my very rough thoughts: Assuming that “good” images of the sun can be obtained, a “count” might be a sequence of tuples, each tuple containing (a) # pixels in the spot (which may itself be a tuple of numbers corresponding to different degrees of darkness), (b) polar coordinates (on the sun’s disk, as viewed) of the spot’s “center”. The tuples might be in sequence according to, e.g., descending order of spot size (#pixels in spot). Together with the tuple list would be more data: (1) #pixels in the image of the sun and (2) longitude and latitude on earth of the observation (or other location data if the observation were from space), (3) time of observation, (4) ancillary info (such as the degrees of darkness) and (5) the picture itself.
Good idea or crazy idea? If good, I assume its already being done, or worked on. Standards bodies take their time…
NeedleFactory says:
April 9, 2014 at 12:12 am
All this discussion (dare I say bickering?) about sunspot counting leads me to wonder if a less subjective “count” could be made.
There are several such methods in use, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Watson3.pdf
and they generally show that the ‘eye’ counts are just fine. The main reason the ‘eye’ counts are good is simply that the instrument, the human eye, has not changed its sensitivity over time.
It’s nice to see that the second peak of the radioflux resembles with the second peak of cycle 23.
july 2002 coincides with september 2013 and the peak of december 2002 with february 2014. Over one year from now it will drop below 100 and interesting times of solar activity starts
lsvalgaard says:
April 8, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Robert of Ottawa says:
April 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm
I am fascinated by the apparent “twin peak” of cycle 23 and 24. Is it due to phase shifting of two internal cycles, or phase differences between North and South Solar hemisphere?
Phase shift between North and South. Cycle 14 did the same: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-24-Groups-Months.png
Several remarks:
– Your version of SC 24 is not updated. The update is shown here:
http://users.skynet.be/fc298377/Sun/Update_SC_24.pdf
– You mention again cycle 14 [as being similar to SC 24], but you know very well that SC 14 had several peaks, not a “twin peak”.
– If a SC has to be chosen to be similar to our current SC (what I do not like because each solar cycle has its own features), I prefer SC 12. The second peak of SC 12 was higher than the first peak, what is also the case now. (During solar cycles 21 – 23, the second peak was lower than the first peak).
N.B.: I admit that your prediction for the smoothed SSN of SC 24 is very remarkable! I thought it would be in the 60s but now I confess I was wrong.
Apparently we know ALL about how the Sun affects the Earth, the UNIPCC said so in their dictat on its forcing values, (with a very low level of scientific understanding, of course) & that the Sun has no significant affect on climate. Yet when asked to explain the lack of warming over the last 15-17 years, they include low Solar activity as one of three reasons as to why that is! Most strange! For a body that possesses 99.9% of the mass of the Solar system to have no affect upon Earth’s climate takes some believing imho! We still don’t know fully how that damned thing works anyway, so how can it be dismissed so readily?
Alan Brit
The magnetic field decreases from 22 cycle, hence 17 years. What would be like will fall more?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/Ap-Index%20Since199001.gif
This is best illustrated galactic radiation levels.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=03&startyear=1991&starttime=00%3A00&endday=09&endmonth=04&endyear=2014&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
It is worth to remember what they looked like predictions.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/ssn_predict_orig.gif
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/ssn_predict_2009.gif
And such is the current forecast.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Cycle22Cycle23Cycle24big.gif
Double peak, exceptionally long cycle.
Guess what’s next?
rikgheysens says:
April 9, 2014 at 1:33 am
– You mention again cycle 14 [as being similar to SC 24], but you know very well that SC 14 had several peaks, not a “twin peak”.
SC24 is not done yet, there will be more peaks, and there have already been at least three peaks: http://www.leif.org/research/Active%20Region%20Count.png
– If a SC has to be chosen to be similar to our current SC (what I do not like because each solar cycle has its own features)
Comparing cycles for details is silly. And, BTW, cycle 14 numbers are too low. Should be increased 20% if you want to compare with modern cycles.
Alan the Brit says:
April 9, 2014 at 1:57 am
so how can it be dismissed so readily?
Because the evidence is so weak.
Good heavens people! Of course the Sun can vary Earth’s surface temperature as has been shown in well-known calculations, which follows the solar cycles. The sub-components of TSI can be ignored as those sub-components have less energy available to change things, which would result in tiny calculations that even the ever stoic Leif would be hard pressed to show us without laughing.
But back to TSI. Trouble is, that TSI calculated signal is buried wayyyy deep in our much larger surface temperature data, be it here on Earth, up in a balloon, or picked up via satellite. Why? The Earth has the ability, all by itself, to block or let in sunshine to the surface and does so in chaotic ways in the short and long term. It also has the ability, all by itself, to store a great deal of that Sun-sourced heat into the oceans and then belch it back out in chaotic ways in the short and long term. Efforts, good ones, have been made to sort out that chaotic signal we call temperature data into its separate components. But that is still all done via calculations, since we cannot separate out the temperature components like we can peas from night shade. And some of those calculations are still a bit of a stab in the dark.
As for the anthropogenic portion of CO2 acting as some huge extra addition to greenhouse gas, that is also laughable. Yes, over land, anthropogenic additions to greenhouse gas may heat things up a bit more but only temporarily. Most of the affect is cleared away at night. Over oceans, it has no ability to heat up the oceans. None. Zilch. Nada. Longwave IR heating energy re-radiated by greenhouse gasses does not have the energy to penetrate to any depth at all into water and what does hit the surface skin is almost immediately evaporated off. The anthropogenic portion of that LWIR heating could only be detected by ridiculously tiny calculations, much like the sub-components of TSI.
I will wait for the ever present solar folks here who will write that some kind of tiny subcomponent of solar output is a butterfly in the upper atmosphere which then powerfully overcomes Earth’s own intrinsic variability that then changes our intrinsically variable atmosphere (jets, large semi-permanent pressure systems, etc) which then powerfully changes, nay…even has the power to reverse, intrinsically variable surface temperature trends and anomalies. All presented of course without plausible mechanisms or verifiable calculations.
Thanks, A. Good post.
Thanks, Leif. Good interpreting and explaining.
Pamela Gray says:
April 9, 2014 at 7:16 am
Excellent summary of several pertinent points.