Tag: sunspots

The sun continues its ramp down

10:44 am

On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in June. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations to give it context.

The decline in sunspots continued for the fourth month in a row, increasing the likelihood that the peak of solar maximum has finally come and gone and that we now seeing the beginning of the ramp down to solar minimum. This resulting solar maximum comes close to matching the science community’s final prediction (indicated by the red line), though that prediction was not detailed enough to include the distinct and unusual double peak for this maximum.
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Is the Sun’s strange double-peaked solar maximum finally ending?

11:42 am

Last week NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in April. As I do every month, I am posting it here, with annotations to give it context.

May Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

For the third month in a row the Sun continued its drop in sunspots, with the total finally slipping below the 2009 prediction for this moment in the solar cycle. If this decline continues through to solar minimum, the shape of the solar maximum will essentially have been established, double-peaked with the second peak stronger than the first, something that solar scientists have never seen before.

At the moment I await word from the scientists that the Sun has completed the flip of its magnetic field polarity in the southern hemisphere. This flip has already occurred in the northern hemisphere, and when the south follows, the maximum will be officially over and we will officiallybegin the ramp down to solar minimum.

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The Sun settling down?

3:43 pm

Two weeks ago NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in April. I have been remiss about doing my monthly post about this, so here it is now, posted below with annotations.

April Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

The Sun continued the drop in sunspots seen the previous month, though the total number remains above the 2009 prediction for this moment in the solar cycle. As already noted, that the second peak of this double peaked solar maximum has been much stronger than the first remains unprecedented.

Overall, the maximum continues to be the weakest seen in a hundred years. Whether this is an indicator of future events or an anomaly can only be discovered after the Sun completes this solar solar cycle and begins the ramp up to its next solar maximum, at least five years away.

The next update is only a few weeks away. Stay tuned.

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The Sun continues to hiccup

11:40 am

It’s sunspot time again! On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in February. I am once again posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

Like it did in January, the Sun’s second peak of the solar maximum continued to beat its first peak, an unprecedented event. Though activity dropped slightly, it still remained above prediction and was only slightly below the first peak’s maximum. Overall, the second peak has been much stronger than the first, something that scientists have never seen before. In the past, when the Sun had a double peaked solar maximum, the second peak was always weaker. Not this time!
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The Sun goes boom again!

8:42 am

On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in January. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

January was the most active month for sunspots this entire solar cycle, exceeding the predictions of the solar scientists, an event that has been quite rare during this generally weak solar maximum. In fact, the Sun was so active that for the first time, the second peak in a double-peaked solar maximum exceeded the first peak in sunspot activity.
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The uncertainty of knowledge

1:28 pm

NOAA this week posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in January. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

Back in October the Sun’s sunspot activity had plummeted, following almost two years of very weak activity. At that time, I wrote, “It appears the solar maximum has ended. The only question now is how long and deep the upcoming solar minimum will be.”

Well, talk about foolish predictions. I should shake hands with Al Gore and James Hansen for making the mistake of announcing the future as if I know what will happen. The truth is that no one truly understands the Sun’s sunspot cycle.

In January the Sun continued the high sunspot activity of the previous three months, once again producing sunspots in numbers close to the actual predictions of the solar science community. And while all their predictions remain generally high when compared to the actual numbers, they can now feel reassured that the overall length and strength of this solar maximum is beginning to resemble the prediction of the solar scientists who thought this would be a weak maximum.
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Yippee! Solar scientists finally get it right

11:39 am

Earlier this week NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in December. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

December was an active month for sunspots, so much so that for only the second time during this solar maximum has the Sun’s activity actually met and exceeded the predictions of the solar science community. In fact, the Sun’s high activity in both November and December has made this second peak in solar maximum almost as strong as the first peak in October 2011. Normally, the second peak of a double-peaked maximum is relatively weak. Not so this time.

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Orbital Sciences has scrubbed today’s launch of Cygnus due to the major solar flare that occurred yesterday.

8:27 am

Orbital Sciences has scrubbed today’s launch of Cygnus due to the major solar flare that occurred yesterday.

“Early this morning the Antares launch team decided to scrub today’s launch attempt due to an unusually high level of space radiation that exceeded by a considerable margin the constraints imposed on the mission to ensure the rocket’s electronic systems are not impacted by a harsh radiation environment,” Orbital Sciences officials said in a statement today.

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Scientists so good they can predict things after it happens

1:57 pm

Normally I would post this tidbit when I do my monthly update of the Sun’s solar cycle, due out in sometime in the next week. However, this piece of news is so ridiculous that I have got to post it now, just so everyone can see how far science in the modern world has declined.

For the past three years I have documented the number of times the solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center have changed their prediction for the number of sunspots during this solar maximum. They have revised their prediction so many times with such a large range that it appears that they really don’t have any real system or theory for making this prediction, but are merely guessing based on instinct, opinion, or tea leaves. Moreover, they do not archive their earlier predictions. If I wasn’t documenting them here monthly, there would be no way to know that while today they predict one thing (very close to what is the right number), two years ago their prediction was way off, In recent months, because the changes have become so absurd, I have been making screen captures of each change.

For the past two months they have been stating that the sunspot maximum had occurred during the summer of 2013 with an average daily sunspot number of 65. Below is my screen capture from when they made this change in November.
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The big solar hotshots of 2013.

11:37 am

The big solar hotshots of 2013.

The article is a nice and visually fascinating overview of the twelve most impressive solar events during the past year. Interestingly, I think #7 is the most significant in that it involved things that didn’t happen.

As small sunspot group NOAA 1838 was falling apart, another active region NOAA 1839 appeared just in time to avoid a spotless day, which would have been the first since 14 August 2011! A spotless day during a solar cycle maximum is not uncommon, but it remains of course a rare event. This absolute low in sunspot number highlighted a period of very low solar activity, with hardly any flares (no C-flares from 7 till 17 September: 11 consecutive days) and no (minor) geomagnetic storms for a full month! Meanwhile, the magnetic field near the solar north pole (finally) completed its reversal, whereas this magnetic flip is still ongoing at the south pole. These reversals testify we’re close to the maximum of solar cycle 24. [emphasis mine]

The phrases in bold clarify where we presently stand with the solar cycle. The southern magnetic field is in the process of reversing, but has not yet completed the flip.

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An upbeat wimpy maximum holds on

8:00 pm

Today NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in November. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

As in October, the Sun was more active than it has been for this entire solar maximum. November’s numbers dropped slightly from October, but still remained high, though as has been typical for this solar maximum they remained below prediction.
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Using Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), scientists have finally identified the Sun’s predicted giant jet streams.

9:17 am

Using Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), scientists have finally identified the Sun’s predicted giant jet streams.

These large flows, bigger than any flow structures previously identified, might help explain the Sun’s rotation (which is faster at the equator than at the poles), its magnetic field, and its production of sunspots. Not surprisingly, however, the models and data do not match exactly:

Mark Miesch, a physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, says the new study confirms modelling work he and others have done on giant convective cells4. There are, however, some differences between what the models suggest and what Hathaway’s team observed. For instance, the models indicate that giant cells should align themselves from north to south near the Sun’s equator, an arrangement that isn’t seen in the new data. In fact, points out solar physicist Junwei Zhao of Stanford University in California, most of the giant cells were seen at high latitudes, and they need to be spotted at lower latitudes as well. “Whether it will convince the community remains to be seen,” says Zhao.

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A new study suggests that the variation of the cosmic ray flux during the solar cycle has little influence on the climate.

7:30 pm

The uncertainty of science: A new study suggests that the variation of the cosmic ray flux during the solar cycle has little influence on the climate.

The study seems statistical in nature, which leaves me skeptical. Nonetheless, the link between cosmic rays and climate change remains tenuous, with only one study at CERN providing any evidence that cosmic rays might have an influence.

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The sun goes boom!

11:34 am

It is always best to admit when you are wrong as soon as you find out. Last month, in reporting NOAA’s monthly update of the solar cycle, I unequivocally stated that

My interpretation of this data tells me that almost certainly the solar maximum has ended. We might see some later fluctuations whereby the sunspot number jumps, but the Sun is clearly beginning its ramp down to solar minimum.

Well, I spoke too soon. Last night NOAA posted the newest update of the solar cycle, and it shows that in October the Sun was more active then it has been in two years. In fact, for only the second time this entire solar cycle the Sun’s sunspot activity actually came close to matching the predictions of scientists. This month’s graph is posted below the fold, with annotations.
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28 solar flares in the past week.

1:04 pm

28 solar flares in the past week.

The sun has erupted more than two dozen times over the last week, sending radiation and solar material hurtling through space – and scientists say more eruptions may be coming.

This shouldn’t be unusual. After all, we are technically at solar maximum, the peak of the 11-year cycle of the sun’s activity. But this has been a noticeably mellow solar maximum, with the sun staying fairly quiet throughout the summer. So when our life-giving star suddenly let loose with 24 medium strength M-class solar flares and four significantly stronger X-class flares between Oct. 23 and Oct. 30, it felt like a surprise.

October was one of the most active months for the sun this solar maximum, and I expect the sunspot count for the month to be quite high as well, more than we’ve seen in two years. I shall have that update in just a few days.

All of these active sunspots have been in the sun’s southern hemisphere, which indicates that hemisphere is finally gearing up to flip its magnetic field, something the sun’s northern hemisphere did last year. Once that happens the solar maximum will be officially over and we will head for the next solar minimum.

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Ramping down from solar maximum

6:55 am

Yesterday, despite the government shutdown, NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, and as I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations.

My interpretation of this data tells me that almost certainly the solar maximum has ended. We might see some later fluctuations whereby the sunspot number jumps, but the Sun is clearly beginning its ramp down to solar minimum.
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“The face of the sun is nearly blank.”

10:14 am

Today NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, and as I do every month, I am posting it here, with annotations.

Before we take a look at that, however, there is other climate news that is apropos. The Daily Mail in the UK put out an entertaining article on Saturday with the headline “And now it’s global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year.”

The article is entertaining because, after illustrating the ice-cap’s recovery this year, it then notes the 2007 prediction by global warming climate scientists that the Arctic Ocean would be “ice-free” by 2013. If this isn’t a good example of the dangers of crying wolf, I don’t know what is.

I should emphasize that the ice-cap recovery this year does not prove that global warming has ceased. A look at this graph from satellite data shows that even though the Arctic icecap has recovered, it is still remains small when compared to the past few decades. The increase this year might only be a blip, or it could be indicating a new trend. We won’t really know for another five years, if then.

The article is also entertaining because it outlines the confusion that is right now going on behind the scenes at the IPCC. The next IPCC report is scheduled to come out next month, but no one agrees with its conclusions because it apparently ignores or minimizes the approximately fifteen year pause in warming that has now been documented since the late-1990s.

In its draft report, the IPCC says it is ‘95 per cent confident’ that global warming has been caused by humans – up from 90 per cent in 2007. This claim is already hotly disputed. US climate expert Professor Judith Curry said last night: ‘In fact, the uncertainty is getting bigger. It’s now clear the models are way too sensitive to carbon dioxide. I cannot see any basis for the IPCC increasing its confidence level.’ [emphasis mine]

It appears that scientists and governments are demanding approximately 1500 changes to the IPCC draft, which suggests its release will be delayed significantly.

Meanwhile, the Sun continues its lackluster and weak solar maximum.
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Modern Journalism: Retyping press releases

10:45 am

This post is really about the monthly NOAA update of the solar cycle, but before I do that, I must note some really bad science journalism in connection with that solar minimum.

This week NASA released a poorly written press release describing how the Sun’s magnetic field flips whenever it goes through solar maximum, the period when sunspot activity reaches its maximum. The article gave the incorrect impression that this “flip” will be some grand singular and spectacular event and when it happens the consequences to Earth could be significant. Then it buried this most important little detail to the article’s final paragraphs:
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The Sun has a maximum and no one notices

10:43 am

On July 8 NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of June 2013. As I do every month, this graph is posted below, with annotations to give it context.

After a brief period of renewed but weak activity during the last three months, the Sun’s sunspot production has once again plunged, dropping back to the levels generally seen for most of 2012.

As predicted by some solar scientists, the Sun seems to have produced a double-peaked maximum, though the second peak appears at this time to have been remarkably wimpy and brief. It is still possible, however, that this second peak is not over and that we might see another burst of renewed activity in the next month or so, based on the Sun’s past behavior during the ending stages of the previous solar maximum in 2001 and 2002. Nonetheless, from all appearances it looks like the Sun has shot its load and is in the process of winding down from a solar maximum peak that occurred back late 2011.

What is especially fascinating about this is that when that peak occurred in 2011, no one noticed!
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Close-minded politicians everywhere!

4:51 pm

Despite the repeated news in recent weeks that the evidence for global warming is slim, or at least confused, today we have two elected officials and one appointed official screaming that the sky will fall if we don’t do something, including spending billions of dollars of other people’s money.

First we have our friend Al Gore, who was in Washington, DC to speak at an environmental event put on by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island). Whitehouse you might remember was the senator who, even before the injured and dead had been counted from the terrible Moore, Oklahoma tornado, started blaming Republicans for the tornado because they weren’t doing more to stop global warming.
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The Sun makes the scientists look good — for now!

1:53 pm

NOAA today released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of May 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I have posted this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

For the third month in a row, the Sun has shown increased sunspot activity. Though the total activity continues to remain well below all predictions, it appears that the Sun is going to produce a double-peaked maximum, as predicted by some solar scientists back in March. Be aware however that this prediction isn’t based on any real understanding of the physical processes that produce sunspots but is instead based on the fact that the Sun has sometimes done this in the past. If you asked these scientists why the Sun sometimes produces a double-peaked maximum they will wave their arms about but will really not be able to tell you.

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To the horror of global warming alarmists, the climate refuses to warm.

9:55 pm

To the horror of global warming alarmists, the climate refuses to warm.

For those who are regular readers here at Behind the Black, none of the data described by Peter Ferrara in this article will be a surprise. I have been reporting these facts for years. However, the article provides a nice outline of what we know, and includes this sentence near the end that sums up the true problem we face:

Has there ever in history been such an almighty disconnect between observable reality and the delusions of a political class that is quite impervious to any rational discussion?

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The Sun shows a bit of life

8:24 am

It is that time again, buckos! Yesterday NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of April 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I have posted this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot output increased. The result is that April 2013 saw the most sunspot activity in more than a year, since December 2011.

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The weak solar maximum continues

10:27 am

Late last night NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of March 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I am posting this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

While the Sun’s output of sunspots increased in March, it did not do so with much vigor, with the numbers still far below all predictions while also showing an overall decline since a single strong peak in October 2011.

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We don’t need no solar maximum

3:37 pm

It is that time again! Today, March 4, NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of February 2013. As I do every month, I am posting this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

Once again, the Sun has shown a complete inability to produce sunspots, at the very moment it had been predicted to be rising towards its maximum in the sunspot cycle. The numbers in February plunged from the tepid rise we saw in January to below the crash we saw in December. Right now, when the Sun is supposed to peaking, it is instead producing sunspots in numbers as low as seen in 2011, at the very end of the last solar minimum.
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