The sun on 08/12/2008 just before midnight UTC – spotless
As many of you know, the sun has been very quiet, especially in the last month. In a NASA news release article titled What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing) solar physicist David Hathaway goes on record as saying:
“It does seem like it’s taking a long time,” allows Hathaway, “but I think we’re just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last.”
No argument there. But it does seem to me that the purpose of Hathaway’s July 11th article was to smooth over the missed solar forecasts he’s made. Here is a comparison of early and more recent forecasts from Hathway:
Click for a larger image
He also seems intent on making sure that when compared to a grand minima, such as the Maunder Minimum, this current spotless spell is a mere blip.
The quiet of 2008 is not the second coming of the Maunder Minimum, believes Hathaway. “We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle,” he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) “This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally.”
What’s next? Hathaway anticipates more spotless days1, maybe even hundreds, followed by a return to Solar Max conditions in the years around 2012.
I would hope that Hathaway’s newest prediction, that this is “not the
second coming of the Maunder Minimum” or even a Dalton Minimum for that matter, holds true.
1Another way to examine the length and depth of a solar minimum is by counting spotless days. A “spotless day” is a day with no sunspots. Spotless days never happen during Solar Max but they are the “meat and potatoes” of solar minima.
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008).Compare that value to the total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest.
Though, Livingston and Penn seem to think we are entering into a grand minima via their recent paper.
As mentioned in “What’s next?”, we are now adding to the total of spotless days in this minima, and since the last update in that article, June 30th, 2008 where they mention this, we have added very few days with sunspots, perhaps 3 or 4.
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008).
So it would seem, that as of August 12th, 2008, we would likely have reached a total of 400 spotless days. The next milestone for recent solar minimas is 446 spotless days, not far off. It will be interesting to see where this current minima ends up.
h/t to Werner Weber
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
An observation from software project management: If, after the original planned (but missed) delivery date, every month (or time T) the estimated completion date from the developers slips by another month (or time T), the project will never complete. Draw your own analogy…
I recall Hathaway’s assertion, and I think Lief’s as well, that Cycle 19, one of the strongest on record followed the last really long cycle. However, I was reading some article somewhere (I know that’s real definative .. but hey ..I’m a novice) that was talking about the magnetic gradient between the poles and the equator (or something like that). Apparently it is at an all time low. Contrast that to the conditions prior to Cycle 19 … it was very high! I think this works against any possibility that Cycle24 is going to be a gangbuster! Based on all I’ve read, IMO, the Sun just doesn’t have the energy stored up to make that prediction come true.
Following the Solar Flux on solarcycle24.com, his trend graph pretty much shows the current condition.
The Sun has “Flatlined” at 65-66.
I don’t really fault Dr. Hathaway for his predictions or the subsequent changes to them, or recent assertions that this is all normal for solar minimum.
As Leif Svalgaard has said, Hathaway’s forecast is an official “product,” and he’s expected to stand behind it.
His forecast has been something of a “moving target,” as someone has pointed out graphically with an animated GIF of Hathaway’s forecasts over time
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/Hathaway_Predict.gif
In any case, compare the behavior of Dr. Hathaway as a government scientist, with that of Hansen, and Dr. Hathaway is an absolute paragon of virtue by comparison.
I don’t believe anyone knows what the sun is doing, and none of the published forecasts adequately addresses current and recent solar behavior.
It’s only fairly recently that Ken Schatten has noted the frequent presence of low-latitude coronal holes – very unusual at solar minimum – and wondered if perhaps these allow magnetic flux to reconnect at low latitudes, and through the coronal holes, “escape” into interplanetary space with the solar wind, leaving the sun “drained” of magnetic energy.
There was also quite a bit of post-maximum activity, right up through 2005, most notably the “Halloween Storms” of 2003. YOU try producing an X-28 solar flare, and see how much energy you have left!
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Flares/Powerflare.html
On June 27 the NOAA/NASA solar prediction panel reaffirmed its official prediction(s) – “The panel expects solar minimum to occur in March, 2008. The panel expects the solar cycle to reach a peak sunspot number of 140 in October, 2011 or a peak of 90 in August, 2012.”
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html
As it becomes increasingly clear that the prediction(s) will not verify, the panel will have to reconvene and address the issue – which ought to be interesting, since no one has a satisfactory explanation for why the sun has not behaved as predicted.
Anthony
Good posting. I have stated earlier on other blogs that my own estimate of the ramp up of the next solar cycle # 24 is more like the end of JUNE 2009.[ not jan/2008 as per NASA]] The weather for the next 12 months will likely be similar to that which existed at the end of other long solar cycles.The problem with many of the recent missed NASA forecasts is that they try to give you the impression that they know exactly what is happening based on regression type of analysis of the past when in fact they seem not to know as much as as they proclaim.. New solar conditions exist where old theories or patterns do not apply as before. The sun is changing and with it our own weather is changing also.
Excuse my ignorance, but was the last time we had a very long ‘spotless days’ period during the 1930s then? If so, didn’t a period of global cooling follow? Looking at the John Daly site on graphed Arctic-area station data, that appears to be the case. Temps then were higher than now.
Steve Berry:
Jan Janssens maintains an excellent record on his “Spotless Days” page
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html
It’s interesting to note that the most recent very deep solar minimum, similar to the one we’re in now, was 1954, and that minimum preceded the largest solar cycle on record, #19.
However, as Leif Svalgaard has shown in work by the Babcocks
http://www.leif.org/research/
the strength of the magnetic field at the solar poles was much stronger then (hence, more magnetic energy available to produce sunspots, according to basic solar dynamo theory).
However, the solar polar fields have been directly observed since the mid-1970s, and they are now the weakest ever in that time period.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
I agree with John X, Dr Hathaway at least has the courage to come back and say well the empirical data says that I missed on my projection and now must make a new one. That he is willing to do this is IMO a very large + for him and raises the level of faith I have in him. I may not always agree with him but I have faith that he will admit when there is a problem with his findings and do his best to correct them. This is in contrast to some others that are working at NASA in the climate field. I don’t think that he has fudged on the numbers to base his studies.
I give a hats off to Dr Hathaway for his willingness to correct to meet the observed data and not the other way around.
Bill Derryberry
Also note that, according to Hathaway himself, the sun’s “Great Conveyor Belt,” which transports magnetic energy from low solar latitudes to the poles at the surface, and back to the equator at depth, has “slowed to a record crawl.” “It’s off the bottom of the charts… We’ve never seen speeds so slow.”
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
But in Hathaway’s view, the current activity really belongs to the next cycle, so while he stands by his forecast for Cycle 24, he sees the following cycle, #25 as being “one of the weakest in centuries.”
He asserts confidently that the current inactivity is “not the second coming of the Maunder Minimum.”
But according to his theory of the solar cycle, the next one will be.
On the number of days without sunspots:
“309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931.”
This appears to be a skewed distribution transitioning between short periods bunched together and longer ones spread more apart.
Compare Leif Svalgaard’s “Most Recent IMF, SW, and Solar Data.pdf “, especially
“Accumulated number of days with SSN=0” on page 6 (and comparisons of cycle minimum on page 4.)
This suggests the new cycle 24 may be swinging past the median into the longer period group.
“We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle,” he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) “This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally.”
All settled!
Leif Svalgaard has proposed a correction factor to sunspot numbers based on changes in observers.
Sunspot Number Calibration by the Magnetic Needle Makes Sense
more info here . . .
http://tinyurl.com/6m5tfp
Was it Yogi Berra who said, “Predicting the future ain’t what it used to be”?
John x
I agree with you about the next solar cycle # 24. In my judgement it will be larger [closer to 200 ] and peak later [late 2012] than currently forecasted by NASA or the expert panel.
Another cross link http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/archives/17
Hope the reality doesn’t fit the prediction. David Archibald says that we need to be pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to double the concentration. This will help the plants.
If Hathaway was replaced by Hansen, we’d have “adjusted” sunspot numbers and be well into SC24. Scientists can interpret data any way they like, as long as they reliably report the data in the first place.
One question: Some of the sunspots from the last year were really small. I noted that the longest spotless minima were all from the late 19th/early 20th century. Were things that are counted as sunspots today counted as sunspots in 1890?
Guys I found this old link:
Earth’s orbital eccentricity and the rhythm of the Pleistocene ice
ages: the concealed pacemaker
It’s a bit over my head but maybe some of you guys not so math challenged
as myself could give it a read.
P.S. moderator if this is a garbage link don’t post it, But I think it’s valid research paper your call.
http://www.geosci.unc.edu/faculty/rial/GPCiceages.pdf
John X,
Leon pointed out the animated graphic.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/arizona-state-climate-models-missing-important-aersols/#comments
The peak of SC24 has now been postponed about 2 years. This points squarely to the fact that there are a lot of things the wiz kids at NASA still don’t understand. Why else would they have missed the barn on this one?
It just goes to show that predícting nature, let alone the climate, with any degree of certainty is no easy or certain thing.
Models, even for the short term, have proven to be hardly better than rubbish.
Bill in Vigo
“I give a hats off to Dr Hathaway for his willingness to correct to meet the observed data”
He doesn’t have a choice. The whole world is watching the sun.
Steve Berry,
That’s the hypothesis. Low sunspot activity means a weak solar magnetic field, which doesn’t keep the cloud-seeding cosmic rays from reaching the earth’s troposphere. The correlation between solar activity and global temperatures is awfully good.
matt v,
Like I said, there’s a lot the wiz kids at NASA don’t understand.
Let me say again:
1) a deep solar minimum [low sunspot number, low f10.7 flux] is not a predictor of a low cycle following. The deep minimum in 1954 was followed by the largest cycle [#19] ever observed.
2) a long solar cycle is not a predictor of a low cycle following. The long cycle 20 was followed by the second largest cycle [#21] ever observed.
The slow start of cycle 24 may predict a low cycle following as strong cycles start out with vigor. The solar polar fields [right now the weakest ever observed] are a good predictor of a low cycle following. This is the basis for my prediction of ~75 for the coming cycle.
I do agree that with john-X that the panel needs to reconvene and update the ‘official’ prediction. There seems to little chance of that happening, unless people write in and suggest such.
I hope Hathaway is correct that the Maunder Minimum isn’t coming. Heaven help us if we do experience another Maunder Minimum because there will be a real catastrophe unlike the scaremongering the AGW crowd is predicting from a warming earth. We can survive a warming earth but not a freezing earth.
The following is a rhetorical question.
‘How well funded is research in solar and solar-terrestrial physics as compared to GHG-induced ‘climate change’?
Three guesses, last two don’t count.
How far back does the sunspot data go? Can we look at a trend over say 50 years? A hundred? How would that even be possible given the technology at the time? Just something I know little about but am becoming increasingly more interested in.
As we cautiously watch the sun, Hathaway’s points are valid as points of keeping things in the proper perspective. So, if the sun started producing spots today, the current minimum ranks flat in the middle of the most recent 11 cycles as far as spotless days. This would turn our “what’s wrong with the sun?” worries to nothing, if the next cycle would heat up as the previous cycles did.
However, just as it is important to keep perspective before declaring the next Grand Minimum is on its way, it is also important to acknowledge that the sun’s recent activity is at its lowest point in nearly 60 years, and it isn’t over yet. So, we are in the median position right now, and it will take some time to ove past that, but we just need to wait. There are reasons to believe on both an observational basis and a theoretical basis (studies of cyclical variations) that a change is underway. We shouldn’t panic, but it is fair to note it and track what is happening with an eye towards that potential, always keeping in mind the historical perspective that we aren’t yet to the point where we can definitively say that this is something new and dire.
My personal feeling, having little qualified experience to call it anything more than a gut feel, is that times have changed. And we will be feeling the effects of it for some time.
I wish I knew. Lambeau Field could be a colder place to visit in January, and I may need some new boots.
I hope someone is following up on that Livingston and Penn paper. It seems like they’re on to something huge, and I’d love to see if their findings can be replicated/confirmed.