Guest essay by David Archibald
The following is a series of graphs that depict the current and past state of the sun.
Figure 1: Solar Cycle 24 relative to the Dalton Minimum
Solar Cycle 24 had almost the same shape as Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum, up to about six months ago and is now a lot stronger.
Figure 2: Monthly F10.7 Flux 1948 to 2014
The strength of the current solar cycle is confirmed by the F10.7 which is not subject to observer bias. Solar Cycle 24 is now five and a half years long.
Figure 3: Ap Index 1932 to 2014
The biggest change in solar activity for the current cycle is in magnetic activity which is now at the floor of activity for the period 1932 to 2007.
Figure 4: Heliospheric Tilt Angle 1976 to 2014
Peak of the solar cycle has occurred when heliospheric tilt angle reaches 73°. For Solar Cycle 24, this was in February 2013. It is now heading down to the 24/25 minimum.
Figure 5: Interplanetary Magnetic Field 1966 to 2014
This looks like a more muted version of the Ap Index. The main difference between them is that the IMF was a lot flatter over Solar Cycle 20 than the Ap Index.
Figure 6: Sum of Solar Polar Field Strengths 1976 to 2014
This is one of the more important graphs in the set in that it can have predictive ability. The SODA index pioneered by Schatten is based on the sum of the poloidal fields and the F10.7 flux. This methodology starts getting accurate for the next cycle a few years before solar minimum. If Solar Cycle 24 proves to be twelve years long, as Solar Cycle 5 was, then the SODA index may start being accurate from about 2016. In terms of solar cycle length, the only estimate in the public domain is from extrapolating Hathaway’s diagram off his image. Hathaway’s curve-fitting suggests that the Solar Cyce 24/25 minimum will be in late 2022. If so, Solar Cycle 24 will be thirteen years long, a little longer than Solar Cycle 23.
It seems that Livingstone and Penn’s estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude of 7 remains the only one in the public domain. The reputational risk for solar physicists in making a prediction remains too great.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
Magnetic field close to the sun damping. (lower amplitude magnetic field,buried)
Continuing over a lengthy period say 40 plus years, will add a rotational effect.
Less spots.
Dr. S. knows what we have for available flux and probably knows exactly where it is on the disk.. lol
At the time of the writing of the Dr. J. Linsky article, the solar fields where already at the FLOOR, he would have seen the “steady,” decline over the period from solar cycle 21 to solar cycle 24. Instead he says maybe tomorrow when really it was prolly cycle 20.
A few cloud overlaps in the interstellar background. Have the overlaps been increasing over our modern records period ..?
Carla says:
June 20, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Magnetic field close to the sun damping. (lower amplitude magnetic field,buried)
Continuing over a lengthy period say 40 plus years, will add a rotational effect.
Carla, this trip of yours is pure nonsense. What happens with the heliosphere past the point where is becomes supersonic does not have any influence on the Sun on any time scale of interest to us.
Pamela, ‘some of the things’ we can learn from the articles I have referred, can and do apply to our sun and its magnetic cycle. Our sun has what we call a heliocurrent sheath that is carried out with the wind and field. Our heliocurrent sheath will move in or out too.. much like what is described in these models, which are based on observation of other stars and their disks or current sheath.
Accretion onto Stars with Octupole Magnetic Fields: Matter Flow, Hot Spots and
Phase Shifts
Nov. 2011
Min Longa, Marina M. Romanovab, Frederick K. Lambc,d
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.5455.pdf?origin=publication_detail
“It is possible, however, that the field can be varied or partially buried
during periods of enhanced accretion, as we discuss later in this paper (see
Sec. 5).”
Carla, back in Dec 2009 it was revealed Voyager tells us we live in a “fluffy” interstellar cloud.
(Note the images and their links are not there and dead, thank NASA.)
So there is a giant bubble of superheated plasma, which would crush the Fluff except it also has a high enough pressure to resist it, and we are in the high pressure Fluff.
But as you keep reading, you’ll see the Sun’s magnetic field, extended by the solar winds, makes its own bubble that keeps the Fluff at bay.
So we are in a bubble that protects us from the cloud we are in which protects us from a bubble of supernova leftovers.
And this galactic cloud is to affect us how?
Carla says:
June 20, 2014 at 6:16 pm
Pamela, ‘some of the things’ we can learn from the articles I have referred, can and do apply to our sun and its magnetic cycle.
No, Carla. This is a recurring mistake of yours. The solar wind is supersonic and there is no reactions back on the sun or its magnetic cycle. I have lost track of how many times I have told you this, but you seem really hard of learning.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 20, 2014 at 6:20 pm
…But as you keep reading, you’ll see the Sun’s magnetic field, extended by the solar winds, makes its own bubble that keeps the Fluff at bay….
————————————————————
Fluffy is not homogenous through out as previously thought. Many tech doc. of those like Dr. Linsky and P. Frisch who through spectral analysis of Na Ca II sight lines ( ever increasing data base) say there is structure that varies on shorter scales. Structures that exist inside of fluffy.
And have you seen the declining strength of all the facets of of the solar magnetic field?
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Multipole.gif
The way in is also shrinking as the field shrinks, hello? And the wind declines and the out going density declines.
Parabola forms of interstellar neutrals at 1 AU, cause solar gravity. And of the incoming species, the helium and neon are focused down wind in a focusing cone and not found in the parabola upwind, unlike O, C, H etc. Earth orbits through the focusing cone in December. They know also that the down wind cone expands and contracts.
“The first signs of such a transformation could be the helium breeze thickening or shifting directions, heralding something new to come.” (2nd link)
Me..see electric field below
Observations of interstellar neon in the helium focusing cone
Christian Drews,1 Lars Berger,1 Robert F. Wimmer‐Schweingruber,1
Antoinette B. Galvin,2 Berndt Klecker,3 and Eberhard Möbius2
published 19 October 2010.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JA015585/pdf
1. Introduction
[2] Because of the Suns motion relative to the surrounding
interstellar medium interstellar atoms with high first ionization
potential penetrate deeply into the inner heliosphere
as an interstellar wind [e.g., Fahr, 1974]. These atoms enter
the heliosphere unimpeded by the heliospheric magnetic
field. Once close to the Sun, they are ionized, picked up
by the combined forces of the interplanetary magnetic and
the motional electric field of the solar wind, and can then be
observed as PickUp Ions (PUIs) [e.g., Möbius et al., 1985;
Gloeckler et al., 1998]. Because of the low relative speed
between heliosphere and the local interstellar medium, the
trajectories of atoms are gravitationally focused on the downwind
side of the Sun, thus leading to a substantial density
enhancement in the neutral gas distribution, termed the
focusing cone [Fahr, 1974], for all interstellar neutral species
except for hydrogen for which solar radiation pressure
compensates for gravitation……………………………….
Also see,
A Breeze from the Stars
Dec. 17, 2004
NASA spacecraft are monitoring an interstellar wind coming from the constellation Ophiuchus.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/17dec_heliumstream/
Carla says:
June 20, 2014 at 7:02 pm
And have you seen the declining strength of all the facets of of the solar magnetic field?
Carla, you just barrel on, oblivious to reason and science. None of what you refer to has any impact on the solar magnetic field.
Helio current sheet is also, also, taking longer to complete its contribution to the solar cycle. nooo
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Tilts.gif
How hooked on rotation is the helio current sheet. What is the status of solar differential rotation?
Carla says:
June 20, 2014 at 7:45 pm
Helio current sheet is also, also, taking longer to complete its contribution to the solar cycle. nooo
The current sheet does not contribute to the solar cycle at all. It is simply a consequence of the cycle, not a cause or contributor.
However ocean currents and natural ocean oscillations readily explain such behavior. Counter to the media hype, it is Antarctic sea ice that should be the most sensitive indicator of climate change caused by greenhouse gases because the Arctic sea ice is affected by too many other confounding factors.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html#http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html
Leif, do you get the feeling these people just don’t understand the scale of what’s happening?
It’s like there’s a ground-burst atomic bomb explosion, and they’re arguing the nuclear reactions have to be affected by the pressure waves and electromagnetic radiation bouncing back off the buildings. Except the explosion never stops.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 20, 2014 at 9:49 pm
Leif, do you get the feeling these people just don’t understand the scale of what’s happening?
Many people have little perception of the proportions. The solar wind is EXTREMELY tenuous and is moving away from the Sun many times faster than any magnetic perturbation could move upstream towards the Sun. Perhaps one should suggest that they move over to the dreamland of Tallbloke.
Carla see a sudden change in the stratosphere in 2001.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_ALL_EQ_2001.gif
Yep, it might mean something someday if we’re colonizing other solar systems and traveling at a significant fraction of c, but until then it’s just much ado about (virtually) nothing. Arguing how much the trajectory of an eagle’s killing strike dive is altered by the eagle’s fart.
And by the late arrival of your comment timestamped before someone who was already up, it appears ShortSheila’s name hit the “awaiting mod” list so your comment languished there. Noted.
Carla, what is more, growth temperature in the upper zone of the ozone lasts for more than a decade. Impact on to, as you can see, can have only an external factor.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_AMJ_EQ_2014.gif
Carla,
I’m surprised that scientists have not noticed such important changes in the stratosphere, especially that at the same time the temperature dropped significantly in the central parts of the ozone layer.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_AMJ_SH_2014.gif
Carla, your intuition is extraordinary.
I am filled with admiration.
lsvalgaard says:
“What D.A. is trying to claim is that we are heading for a Grand Minimum and that it is going to be cold. Unfortunately, SC24 does not seem to comply.”
Neither did SC5 around its maximum, 1804 and 1806 were warm in Europe, most of the cold in Dalton was during the following decade. I think that we are going to see a similar shift to colder conditions from 2016 to 2024.
Ulric Lyons says:
June 21, 2014 at 9:19 am
Neither did SC5 around its maximum, 1804 and 1806 were warm in Europe, most of the cold in Dalton was during the following decade.
And likely helped along by very large volcanic eruptions in 1809, 1814, and 1815.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 20, 2014 at 9:49 pm
Leif, do you get the feeling these people just don’t understand the scale of what’s happening
————————————————————————————————————————–
You only show that you don’t understand the scale either.
Our sun compared to the size of the galaxy it orbits in, sun is 864,377 miles wide.
The milky way is 100,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick.
A corotating interactive region on Earth is not the same size as a corotating interaction region on the sun.
A corotating interaction region from the sun, is not the same size as a corotating interaction region from interstellar space.
And ya think that huge expanses of expanding gas don’t accumulate and overlap during their expansion periods? Ask Dr. Linksy and P. Frisch if they don’t see a convergence of clouds infront of our heliosphere. Picture the clouds residing in corotating super shells, while inside the rotating shell the winds are calmer, but as you reach the outer rings the winds will change as will the density.
http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/user/137915/InterstellarCloud_e_0906.jpg
Thanks ren,
The Earlier start of winter last year bothered me too.
If the downwind helium/neon focusing cone thickened/widened Earth would have Entered it at an Earlier date. Thickening and widening would indicate an increase of interstellar neutrals to the interplanetary system.
See pages 16-17 for images depicting He/Ne focusing cone of interstellar neutrals and the associated up wind crescent at 1 AU.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/publications/stereo_sr_2013_proposal.pdf
Carla says:
June 21, 2014 at 10:05 am
You only show that you don’t understand the scale either.
None of this matters. You are thinking about linear, spatial scales. The important scale to work with is the energy scale. It doesn’t matter for solar activity that the sun orbits in a galaxy 100,000 light years across which is millions of light years away from other galaxies, which in turn are spread over 94 billion light years to the edge of the visible universe. The solar wind is supersonic and keeps all the incoming stuff which could have a significant impact away.
“we can no longer assume that the heliosphere changes only because of the solar wind,” Frisch said
I like her..
Interstellar winds provide rare look at Milky Way’s complexity
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/interstellar-winds-provide-rare-look-at-milky-ways-complexity#
Fri, Sep 06, 2013 at 12:00 PM
…”Helium is gravitationally focused to create a trail of helium known as the ‘focusing cone’ behind the sun as it moves through space,” Frisch said.
The dense cone makes the particles easier to study as they pack in behind Earth’s star.
The changing wind could have implications that go beyond understanding the region surrounding the solar system. It could also affect studies of the charged particles streaming off the sun.
””When we try to understand the past and present heliosphere, we can no longer assume that the heliosphere changes only because of the solar wind,” Frisch said. “Now we have evidence that changes in the interstellar wind may be important.”‘
lsvalgaard says:
June 21, 2014 at 10:11 am
——————————————–
Gravitational focusing is direct evidence that accretion doesn’t end at some earlier time in a stars history.