by Dr. Tony Philips, NASA Spaceweather
Sunspots are becoming scarce. Very scarce. So far in 2018 the sun has been blank almost 60% of the time, with whole weeks going by without sunspots. Today’s sun, shown here in an image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, is typical of the featureless solar disk:
The fact that sunspots are vanishing comes as no surprise. Forecasters have been saying for years that this would happen as the current solar cycle (“solar cycle 24”) comes to an end. The surprise is how fast.
“Solar cycle 24 is declining more quickly than forecast,” announced NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center on April 26th. This plot shows observed sunspot numbers in blue vs. the official forecast in red:
“The smoothed, predicted sunspot number for April-May 2018 is about 15,” says NOAA. “However, the actual monthly values have been [significantly] lower.”
“Official” forecasts of the solar cycle come from NOAA’s Solar Cycle Prediction Panel–a group of experts from NOAA, NASA, the US Air Force, universities and other research organizations. They have been convening at intervals since 1989 to predict the timing and intensity of Solar Max. The problem is, no one really knows how to predict the solar cycle. The most recent iteration of the panel in 2006-2008 compared 54 different methods ranging from empirical extrapolations of historical data to cutting-edge supercomputer models of the sun’s magnetic dynamo. None fully described what is happening now.
It’s important to note that solar minimum is a normal part of the sunspot cycle. Sunspots have been disappearing (or nearly so) every ~11 years since 1843 when German astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe discovered the periodic nature of solar activity. Sometimes they go away for decades, as happened during the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. We’ve seen it all before. Or have we….?
Researchers are keeping a wary eye on the sun now because of what happened the last time sunspots disappeared. The solar minimum of 2008-2009 was unusually deep. The sun set Space Age records for low sunspot number, weak solar wind, and depressed solar irradiance. When the sun finally woke up a few years later, it seemed to have “solar minimum hangover.” The bounce-back Solar Max of 2012-2015 was the weakest solar maximum of the Space Age, prompting some to wonder if solar activity is entering a phase of sustained quiet. The faster-than-expected decline of the sunspot cycle now may support that idea.
Newcomers to the field are often surprised to learn that a lot happens during solar minimum: The sun dims, albeit slightly. NASA recently launched a new sensor (TSIS-1) to the International Space Station to monitor this effect. With less extreme UV radiation coming from the sun, Earth’s upper atmosphere cools and shrinks. This allows space junk to accumulate in low Earth orbit.
Above: A neutron bubble chamber in an airplane 35,000 feet above Greenland. Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus are flying these sensors to measure aviation radiation during solar minimum. [more]
The most important change, however, may be the increase in cosmic rays. Flagging solar wind pressure during solar minimum allows cosmic rays from deep space to penetrate the inner solar system. Right now, space weather balloons and NASA spacecraft are measuring an uptick in radiation due to this effect. Cosmic rays may alter the chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere, trigger lightning, and seed clouds.
Air travelers are affected, too. It is well known that cosmic rays penetrate airplanes. Passengers on long commercial flights receive doses similar to dental X-rays during a single trip, while pilots have been classified as occupational radiation workers by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Ongoing measurements by Spaceweather.com and Earth to Sky Calculus show that dose rates at cruising altitudes of 35,000 feet are currently ~40 times greater than on the ground below, values which could increase as the solar cycle wanes.
Solar minimum is just getting started. Stay tuned for updates.
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The sun has nothing to do with temp here on earth, everyone knows that…. 😉
I am surprised that none of the comments on this article mention Svensmark’s hypothesis.
The missing link between exploding stars, clouds, and climate on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171219091320.htm
I always mention it and believe Svensmark is correct.
CRs climb into the solar minimum, the equatorial pacific cools off, but there are fewer clouds. How do fewer clouds over the eq. pacific then cool the ocean more? Fewer clouds from cooling ocean resulted from there being less energy input under low TSI, not the CRs. The OHC cycles in a repeating pattern not driven by CR-clouds at all:
?dl=0
Where can I get me a neutron-bubble chamber?
Bed Bath & Baryond?
Naw man, I an’ I seen ’em at the Bob Marley store in Ochi.
Sara
May 2, 2018 at 5:16 am
Excellent possibilities. The Solar Wind is less and it is letting more “Cosmic Rays” into the upper atmosphere. Could the “Rays” be altering virus/bacteria dna which then caused pandemics in the past? Might this happen in the future?
That’s a good question, jlurtz. Most of the Plagues in the past were transmitted by instect bites and direct contact, and aggravated by poor hygiene and contaminated surroundings. Everyone thinks the Romans were such clean people, but in fact, as archaeologists at Pompeii have found, the sewers were really cesspits that were never cleaned, and there was a toilet in the kitchen next to the food prepping area. The Roman baths were swimming pools that were not drained, chlorinated, and decontaminated like our swimming pools are. The cacatoria were public toilets and people shared a sponge (no toilet paper back then) to clean themselves after defecating.
In the Middle Ages, because the Church of Rome had declared all Roman stuff to be heretical, Roman medicine (quite advanced for that time) was outlawed. Hence the lice and fleas that carry those diseases, and lived on rats which jumped ship at the wharves, were all loose in the population.
Earlier, hemorrhagic fevers out of Africa swept through and decimated cities like Athens. You were as likely to die of a battle wound becoming septic as you were if you picked up a disease that was potentially fatal.
The unique thing about viruses is that they share genetic material with each other at will, which is why the swine/bird flu pandemic in 2006 was discovered to be an offshoot of the Spanish flue virus, which was also bird flu. Swine flu and bird flu combined in the wild to form a new variant, the result being an organism that regular flu shots couldn’t block.
I don’t think it’s deep space radiation altering the genetic material of disease-causing organisms just yet, but it could happen . Just make sure you get the pneumonia shot when you get your flu shot.
The thing is, the poles haven’t flipped in 780,000+ years, so we simply do not know what will happen. Could be massive tectonic activity, or just a quiet event. Magnetic geological samples show that until the last polar swap occurred, the magnetic north had swapped poles regularly, and then it all stopped. Why? Did we get lucky, so that during this 780 millennia, we could become who we are today? Or was that just a coincidence?
I forgot to add that viruses do not have DNA. They have RNA, which makes them inert until they invade a host’s healthy cells and mix their RNA with the host’s DNA. Once this happens, they multiply faster than a speeding freight train.
How rapidly? This is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Over 60,000,000 people died between 1918 and 1919. https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
The side effect was that patients who contracted the Spanish Flu, which started in France and may have originated in China, contracted a very aggressive strain of pneumonia.
When I went for my flu shot last fall, I only got that. My sister (teaches pre-med students, among others) scolded me and said ‘GET THE PNEUMONIA SHOT!!’
I’m passing that along. These viruses quickly and easily shit their genetic material to infect a new host. That is nothing but a survival mechanism at its most basic level.
Eewwww! I have a typo – a heinous typo! I used the “S” word. I meant SHIFT, not the one that is there. My bad!
Most viruses have RNA genomes but some have DNA genomes, also the Pneumonia vaccine is an anti-bacterial vaccine.
The Solar Model is still being developed for Sunspots; this is why [most] predictions are based on historical data. Even the concept of a “cycle” is being questioned. I guess that for the Sun, the Sunspots need a new “definition” of a “cycle” in nature.
The present model of the interior of the Sun is that it is a uniform thermonuclear reaction at the core of the Sun. I disagree since the core of the Sun is where 75% of the Helium [heavier waste product] resides. In addition, nothing in nature is uniform. Why couldn’t there be “bubbles” of heat developed by the “core”?
Why can’t the Sun have a 400 year variable cycle? The multiyear variable cycle is observed on other Stars.
I disagree since the core of the Sun is where 75% of the Helium [heavier waste product] resides
Sunspots are not generated in the core of the Sun, but in the outer layers just below the surface.
Prove it!!!
The core [and the surrounding radiative zone ] is stable for convection which means that matter [and sunspots] don’t move upwards so a sunspot generated down there would stay down there.
That is your theory! You have no data, as you have stated.
You are pretending to have results with no analysis.
Show me your data for the the center of the Sun!
Show me your data for the center of the Sun!
This is a good source
https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml
I’m glad that when I received my doctorate for producing real devices and real data, and that you were not my advisor. You are like the ones that did not have a new view point about tectonic “theory” which then became plate theory.
Try something new. I am not your minions that will agree to get a degree.
If you are so great, why can’t you get the Solar Prediction Group to agree with you?
Leif, I have a question abut sunspots, myself. The facula (white border) is hotter than the rest of the sunspot, which looks dark by comparison. Is the number of facula with no dark center a factor in solar output? The sunspots emerging now don’t seem to have much in the way of the dark center, just the faculae.
I just want to understand how that works. Thanks.
Is the number of facula with no dark center a factor in solar output?
The faculae are closely related to sunspots. They are seats of moderate magnetic fields and often occur before the associated spots appear and lasts some time after the sunspots have decayed away. In a sense, they are the stuff sunspots are formed from and are also the decay products of dying spots. The emission from the brighter faculae is twice the deficit of the darker spots, so the overall effects of faculae+spots is increased emission.
“It cannot be said that much progress has been made towards the disclosure of the cause, or causes, of the sunspot cycle.
Is such a disclosure even possible?
Is such a disclosure even possible?
We hope so. with today’s much better instruments and data.
Older book, but you might find Sunquakes by J.B.Ziker informative. It says only the outer 30% of the sun is convective. This is where the magnetic fields that cause sunspots are, not in the core. I’m sure Leif has more up-to-date and detailed information. This what his group has been studying.
Solar activity and even solar wind can be accurately computed and predicted. And in fact they are the climate variability drivers. I have shown the complete mechanisms in my recent papers. It is the orbiting planets tidal forcing to the low density solar atmosphere that drives solar activity and heat transfer rate to the exterior of the sun.
Though I had written these nice papers, those guys on astronomy.stackexchange brake the records on malignity. They where discussing and rejecting my paper after a poor read and understanding. I tried to comment to explain the SCIENCE to them, and instead they deleted my comment and BANNED my account!!!
this is the link to the discussion.
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/9933/does-the-orbital-variation-in-planetary-gravity-affect-the-suns-corona
here is an answer to their comments:
Sun’s rotational period is about 25 days so the oscillators’ frequencies are very low (a month to several years). Solar photosphere is not a liquid – water like – fluid with high viscosity values to absorb those waves and transform them to heat. Instead it is a high temperature, very low density gas. So these waves form and propagate within the solar mass continuously and eternally as sound waves. Their interference produces solar surface observed phenomena and oscillators’ induced frequencies oscillations. The orbiting planets’ tidal force is very weak but it’s continuous eternal additive interference produces high scale phenomena.
As a result it indeed drives the rate of heat flux from the solar surface.
The main mistake scholars do about solar activity is they use navier-stokes equations of uncompressed liquids, but this is not the case for the very low density solar atmosphere where the phenomena take place.
Hope this helps you clarify why planetary tides on solar surface drive indeed solar activity
Just wanted to add that the tidal forcing of the solar atmosphere and the solar activity variability it produces, isn’t in fact even a high scale phenomenon. The solar temperature varies by some 6000 K at surface to some millions K at core. So if only you dig into some kilometers into the ultra low density gas solar atmosphere by tidal perturbation, you can have some 1000 K increase in temperature. This is not a high scale phenomenon. It is only perceived as high scale because it influences our lives.
Looking at monthly values compared with predicted values this looks about 3 years too soon.
“The sun dims, albeit slightly. NASA recently launched a new sensor (TSIS-1) to the International Space Station to monitor this effect. With less extreme UV radiation coming from the sun, Earth’s upper atmosphere cools and shrinks.”
So does this relate to relative strengthening of the jet stream in NH summer compared to other summers?
Nasa admitted that the “black body” TSI detector did not correctly analyze the EUV, or UV.
A new senor is needed to “give better” results!
Did not read through all the comments above my post. https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/interior.shtml looks to be a nice overview. Sunquakes details how some of that information was obtained.
Maybe the sun works kind of like a van de graaf generator (charge on the surface).
Me, I’m hoping it’s a draw and whatever heat we put into the atmosphere compensates for the Suns lower input.
It’s ice that kills the most.
All this continually developing technology and yet no one can really predict the weather over the next 24hrs let alone a few weeks, months or years ahead, if we are to be honest.
I’ve read Prof Brian Fagan’s book that used contemporary data, amongst other things across a whole host of topics in scientific fields, and am well aware of the impact flawed data can have in various scientific fields. I’ve also argued for this https://ods.od.nih.gov/Research/vdsp.aspx once I found out different methods of measuring Vit D can give different results from the same person, which one could describe as a flaw due to the way the scientific community works, & patents are needed to insure future revenues.
I think its safe to say much of life has evolved under the sun and sunspots is one area that’s of interest as our scientific sensors and satellite technology continues to improve and reduce in costs.
As this board with comments and others demonstrate, the IPCC hack, the short spans of data from different methods of measuring data, there is lot of unknowns to still factor in, yet I see very little debate or hear of studies in the media about the impact of air travel on weather systems and the subsequent spin off to the economies affected.
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/index.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-aviation/like-9-11-volcano-plane-ban-may-hold-climate-clue-idUSTRE63M1PH20100423
I don’t see much being discussed with regard to the climate effects caused by urbanisation, of which there’s quite a few which certainly affect human health and plant life, trends for different vehicle fuels driven by costs, crops for livestock, humans & fuels, just like the impact of urban sprawl’s heat island effect on ground level weather stations which can skew some results or give false weather impressions.
Whilst we have some new satellite technology to measure the sun in many different ways, I often wonder how standardised the equipment is to ensure consistency when one sensor is phased out for another since the advent of the telescope.
Soil & ice core data along with tree ring data can provide some measurements, but lets be honest its not very accurate over timescales on anything less than on an annual basis.
So I think it would be interesting to see, as an experiment, how our jet liner travel is affecting climate by proposing a global experiment where all jet liner travel, both civilian and military is grounded for week globally without exception.
Something to plan for the future to see if it can get off the ground, with perhaps the exception being medical emergencies requiring something like a helicopter or light aircraft evacuation.
This way all scientists can plan ahead what experiments they would want to perform, school kids of all ages could get involved to help measure any observable changes to their own local environments before, during and after the experiment. Businesses could use this as a contingency planning exercise to ensure little or no disruption to the JIT supply chain we are so heavily reliant upon today for getting goods around the world and in a way this could be viewed as an exercise of reactivity for a scenario like Tambora. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
You can take all the nukes ever made, let them off and they still wouldn’t have the impact Tambora had, so in a way mankind still needs to roll in its own hubris in some ways, and this would be a good way to contingency plan on a global, national and regional level for a massive volcanic explosion spewing dust into the upper atmosphere.
Lets face it, back then people were more self sufficient on a local level, population levels were much much lower, and global trade was tiny in comparison to today, yet the global populations is still forecast to increase up to around 2050 so the demands on global trade will only increase.
Sure there will be resistance, who wants to give up their holiday but the financial crisis and quantative easing demonstrated when push comes to shove things can happen on a global scale, and what price can you put on the knowledge gained from such a seemingly simple experiment on a global scale to get a better understanding of the main driving force for most of life on this planet?
As stated before: I have the complete sunspot theory.
http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers/View/7246
http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers/View/7224
With these principles I am able to calculate fast growing sunspots. However, I still don’t know if it will be on the farside or the Earthside…
On May 18 around 10:30 a fast growing sunspot should appear somewhere… Let’s hope it is on this side…