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Title: Where have all the sunspots gone?
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URL Source: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.co ... re-have-all-the-sunspots-gone/
Published: Feb 13, 2008
Author: Anthony Watts
Post Date: 2008-02-16 12:03:29 by farmfriend
Ping List: *Agriculture-Environment* Subscribe to *Agriculture-Environment*
Keywords: None
Views: 228
Comments: 18
I’m writing this after doing an exhaustive search to see what sort of solar activity has occurred lately, and I find there is little to report. With the exception of the briefly increased solar wind from a coronal hole, there is almost no significant solar activity. The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet. It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after that. Of course we’ve known that the sunspot cycle has gone low, which is also to be expected for this period of the cycle. Note that NOAA still has two undecided scenarios for cycle 24 Lower that normal, or higher than normal, as indicated on the graph below: But the real news is just how quiet the suns magnetic field has been in the past couple of years. From the data provided by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) you can see just how little magnetic field activity there has been. I’ve graphed it below: What is most interesting about the Geomagnetic Average Planetary Index graph above is what happened around October 2005. Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels. This looks much like a “step function” that I see on GISS surface temperature graphs when a station has been relocated to a cooler measurement environment. In the case of the sun, it appears this indicates that something abruptly “switched off” in the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Note that in the prior months, the magnetic index was ramping up a bit with more activity, then it simply dropped and stayed mostly flat. We saw a single reversed polarity high latitude sunspot on January 4th, 2008, which would signal the start of a new cycle 24, which was originally predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. So far the sun doesn’t seem to have restarted its normal upwards climb. If you have ever studied how the magnetic dynamo of the sun is so incredibly full of entropy, yet has cycles, you’ll understand how it can change states. The sun’s magnetic field is a like a series of twisted and looped rubber bands, mostly because the sun is a fluid gas, which rotates at different rates between the poles and the equator. Since the suns magnetic field is pulled along with the gas, all these twists, bumps, and burps occur in the process as the magnetic field lines get twisted like taffy. You can see more about it in the Babcock model. I’ve alway’s likened a sunspot to what happens with a rubber band on a toy balsa wood plane. You keep twisting the propeller beyond the normal tightness to get that extra second of thrust and you see the rubber band start to pop out knots. Those knots are like sunspots bursting out of twisted magnetic field lines. The Babcock model says that the differential rotation of the Sun winds up the magnetic fields of it’s layers during a solar cycle. The magnetic fields will then eventually tangle up to such a degree that they will eventually cause a magnetic break down and the fields will have to struggle to reorganize themselves by bursting up from the surface layers of the Sun. This will cause magnetic North-South pair boundaries (spots) in the photosphere trapping gaseous material that will cool slightly. Thus, when we see sunspots, we are seeing these areas of magnetic field breakdown. Sunspots are cross connected eruptions of the magnetic field lines, shown in red above. Sometimes they break, spewing tremendous amounts of gas and particles into space. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME’s) are some examples of this process. Sometimes they snap back like rubber bands. The number of sunspots at solar max is a direct indicator of the activity level of the solar dynamo. Given the current quietness of the sun and it’s magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed it’s internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum. One of the things about the Dalton Minimum was that it started with a skipped solar cycle, which also coincided with a very long solar cycle 4 from 1784-1799. The longer our current cycle 23 lasts before we see a true ramp up of cycle 24, the greater chance it seems then that cycle 24 will be a low one. No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. NASA GISS published a release back in 2003 that agrees with the commonly accepted idea that long period trends in solar activity do affect our climate by changing the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). Some say it is no coincidence that 2008 has seen a drop in global temperature as indicated by several respected temperature indexes compared to 2007, and that our sun is also quiet and still not kick starting its internal magentic dynamo.
Where have all the sunspots gone?
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#1. To: farmfriend, *Global Climate Change* (#0)
www.unisci.com/stories/20022/0613022.htm "This was true for the first three or four solar cycles we studied, from about 1930 to 1962, but then the correlation reversed itself, demonstrating that the mechanism couldn't be what we thought," said Ram. It turned out that during those 32 years of positive sun/dust correlation, there was relatively little explosive volcanic activity worldwide. The researchers found that the same conditions existed between 1860 and 1882. Each of these relatively "quiet" periods came to an end with increased volcanic activity. For example, in 1883, the Indonesian volcano Krakatau erupted in one of the deadliest volcanic disasters, killing 36,000 people. At exactly the same time, the data started to exhibit low dust concentration whenever there was high sunspot activity, a correlation that violated the scientists' original assumptions. "By carefully studying the timing of other volcanic eruptions, we found that they coincided with all of the correlation reversals between sunspots and climate," said Ram. A chart in the paper shows how six major volcanic eruptions between 1800 and 1962 occurred during precisely the same years when there were reversals in the correlation between sunspot activity and climate.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! The Revolution will not be televised! It's interesting how two seemingly unconnected forces show synchronization between them. Data over the past several decades have shown an alarming decrease in sunspot activity beyond the normal 11 year cycle. Solar-induced global cooling appears to be on its way. While I do think that there is a short-term danger of global warming from CO2 emissions -- with glacial melting a real problem (not that I trust the government-proposed solutions) -- this will reverse, I think, within 100 years, as the reduced solar output begins to affect global temperatures.
Scientists I talk to who look at the sun cycle/climate correlations are expecting us to head into another Dalton type minimum. This would be more devastating than any warming that was forecast for AGW (anthropogenic global warming). It was warmer during the medieval warm period with no disasters evident.
The Kinks - Where Have All The Good Times Gone? "Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
LOL! That's better than "where have all the flowers gone" which seems to have gotten stuck in my head.
I was sure that's what Dak had posted.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! The Revolution will not be televised! You know what we need is a good posting of Alice's Restaurant.
I think I have it on a Peter, Paul and Mary albumn. I like "Times, they are a changin'" better though.
I just got off the phone with a friend from a long time ago, wondering if he had the phone number of another old friend that owes me $800.
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
(yeaH)
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
SNARKY, SNARKY, SNARKY
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
Ouch!
And what's funny is I care more about my thieving friend than my $800.
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
That $800 was worth more a few months ago.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! The Revolution will not be televised! I was kicked off Fleshettes 4 Bernanke Committee, I told you that...
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
I understand and respect that.
I like people that make me laugh. I don't know if humorless bureaucrats are spiting me for that, I've given up on politics.
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them." - Charley Reese
So do I. Life isn't worth living without humor.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.-T Jefferson
#2. To: robin (#1)
From Two Party System... ...to Two Family System.
#3. To: PnbC (#2)
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#4. To: farmfriend (#0)
#5. To: Dakmar (#4)
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#6. To: farmfriend, Dakmar (#5)
"where have all the flowers gone"
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.-T Jefferson
#7. To: Dakmar (#4)
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#8. To: robin, Dakmar (#6)
I was sure that's what Dak had posted.
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#9. To: farmfriend (#5)
That's better than "where have all the flowers gone" which seems to have gotten stuck in my head.
#10. To: robin (#6)
#11. To: farmfriend (#8)
I think I have it on a Peter, Paul and Mary albumn. I like "Times, they are a changin'" better though.
#12. To: Dakmar (#9)
wondering if he had the phone number of another old friend that owes me $800.
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#13. To: farmfriend (#12)
#14. To: Dakmar (#13)
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.-T Jefferson
#15. To: robin (#14)
#16. To: Dakmar (#13)
And what's funny is I care more about my thieving friend than my $800.
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
#17. To: farmfriend (#16)
#18. To: Dakmar (#17)
I like people that make me laugh.
Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. -- Alfred, Batman Begins
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