The solar maximum has already occurred in the Sun’s northern hemisphere, according to new observations.

The solar maximum has already occurred in the Sun’s northern hemisphere, according to one scientist’s research.

Moreover, the data also suggests that the maximum in the Sun’s southern hemisphere will not occur until early in 2014. This asymmetry between the hemispheres also suggests the strong possibility of a Grand Minimum to follow.

A delayed but higher prediction for the solar maximum?

The uncertainty of science: The solar scientists at the Marshall Spaceflight Center today revised upward their prediction for the upcoming peak of the solar maximum, from a sunspot number of 60 to 76, while simultaneously delaying the arrival of their predicted peak from the spring to the fall of 2013.

Since Marshall does not archive its predictions, I am required to keep track of the revisions they make and note them here. Previously I had outlined the changes in this prediction since January 2011. Here is an updated listing:
» Read more

Sunspots and climate

Scientists have found new evidence that the solar sunspot cycle has influenced the Earth’s climate in the recent past.

Sirocko and his colleagues found that between 1780 and 1963, the Rhine froze in multiple places fourteen different times. The sheer size of the river means it takes extremely cold temperatures to freeze over making freezing episodes a good proxy for very cold winters in the region, Sirocko said.

Mapping the freezing episodes against the solar activity’s 11-year cycle — a cycle of the Sun’s varying magnetic strength and thus total radiation output — Sirocko and his colleagues determined that ten of the fourteen freezes occurred during years when the Sun had minimal sunspots. Using statistical methods, the scientists calculated that there is a 99 percent chance that extremely cold Central European winters and low solar activity are inherently linked.

Also this:
» Read more

The Sun continues to fizzle

Yesterday NOAA posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. You can see this latest graph, covering the month of July, below the fold.

As we have seen now for almost four years, the Sun continues to under-perform the predictions of solar scientists when it comes to the number of sunspots it is producing. In fact, that the sunspot number did not rise in July is surprising, as July had appeared to be a very active month for sunspots, with some of the strongest solar flares and coronal mass ejections seen in years. Instead, the number declined ever so slightly.
» Read more

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers studying an icecore drilled in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have found strong evidence of the 16th century Little Ice Age in the southern hemisphere.

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers studying an ice core drilled in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have found strong evidence of the 16th century’s Little Ice Age in the southern hemisphere. From the abstract:

The temperature in the time period 1400–1800 C.E. was on average 0.52 ± 0.28°C colder than the last 100-year average. … This result is consistent with the idea that the [Little Ice Age] was a global event, probably caused by a change in solar and volcanic forcing, and was not simply a seesaw-type redistribution of heat between the hemispheres as would be predicted by some ocean-circulation hypotheses.

In an effort to emphasis human-caused global warming and eliminate any evidence of climate change caused by other factors, many global warming scientists have argued that the Little Ice Age was not a global event but merely a cooling in Europe. This data proves them wrong. The global climate has varied significantly in the recent past, and not because of human behavior. Other factors, such as fluctuations in the solar cycle, must be considered more seriously for scientists to obtain a better understanding of the Earth’s climate.

Scientists have found that a solar Grand Minimum 2800 years ago might have caused a period of cooling in Europe

Scientists have found that a solar Grand Minimum 2800 years ago might have caused a period of cooling in Europe.

The evidence for this link is at this moment slim, based upon a single data point from a lake in Germany. Nonetheless, it is further evidence that the Sun’s production of sunspots is more important to global climate than climate scientists had previously believed.

An up and down Sun, for real this time

Though I am a bit late in covering this story (due to moving, unpacking, Passover, and an unexpected visit to the dentist), NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center on April 9 released its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. The most recent graph is below the fold.

In order to understand the context of this new graph, however, it is necessary to make a correction and clarification.
» Read more

An up and down Sun

close-up

Late last week NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center released its monthly update of the ongoing solar cycle sunspot activity, covering February 2012. Though I am slightly late in posting it, as I do every month, you can now see the full graph below the fold. I have also created a close-up of the graph’s relevant area, shown on the left, because it is hard to decipher what is happening on the full graph.

Since the Sun began it ramp up to solar maximum back in 2009, the pattern has been consistent, two steps forward, one step back. First there are several months in a row in which the number of sunspots show a steep rise, followed immediately by several months in which the sunspot numbers decline just as steeply, though by not as much. All told, since 2009 we have seen this pattern repeat four times.

February’s numbers have continued that pattern.
» Read more

Solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center have once again adjusted their prediction for the upcoming solar maximum.

Solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center have once again adjusted their prediction for the upcoming solar maximum.

The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 70 in May of 2013. We are currently over two and a half years into Cycle 24. Five out of the last six months with average daily sunspot numbers above 40 has raised the predicted maximum above the 64.2 for the Cycle 14 maximum in 1907. This predicted size still make this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years.

This new prediction is slightly higher than their prediction of 63 from two weeks ago. As they note, even this new number leaves us with a very weak solar maximum.

The link between sunspots and climate

In a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website and accepted for publication in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Norwegian scientists have found a strong correlation between the length of the solar sunspot cycle and the Earth’s temperature during the following cycle. From the abstract:

Relations between the length of a sunspot cycle and the average temperature in the same and the next cycle are calculated for a number of meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic region. No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. This provides a tool to predict an average temperature decrease of at least 1.0 ◦ C from solar cycle 23 to 24 for the stations and areas analyzed. We find for the Norwegian local stations investigated that 25–56% of the temperature increase the last 150 years may be attributed to the Sun. For 3 North Atlantic stations we get 63–72% solar contribution. [emphasis mine]

You can download a copy of the paper here [pdf].

Their paper finds that if a particular sunspot cycle is longer with less activity, the climate will show significant cooling during the next cycle.

The paper makes several important points:
» Read more

The Sun goes bust

It is that time of the month again. Today NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center today released its monthly update of the ongoing solar cycle sunspot activity, covering January 2012. I have posted the graph below the fold.

For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity plunged. The drop in activity has been so steep that it has cancelled out almost two thirds of the activity rise that occurred during the last half of 2010. In fact, the drop brings the Sun’s sunspot count back to numbers comparable with March of last year, hardly a sign of a fast ramp up to solar maximum, which is what solar scientists have come to expect the Sun to do. Instead, the Sun’s activity during this ramp up has fluctuated wildly, going up strongly for several months and then dropping precipitously for another few months. These wild swings have now repeated themselves four times since the fall of 2010.
» Read more

Data issued last week without fanfare by both the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Data issued last week without fanfare by both the UK’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

The article also discusses at great length the additional influence the sun and its sunspot cycle might have on the climate, something I have discussed here at great length. However, the above factoid is the article’s most important data point.

The biggest solar storm to be aimed at the Earth in seven years is expected to reach us by Tuesday.

The biggest coronal mass ejection to be aimed at the Earth in seven years is expected to reach us by Tuesday.

No need to panic. Not only is the storm still relatively mild compared to past eruptions, the airline and electrical industries are actually well prepared for this event. However, if you want to see the aurora, this will probably be a good opportunity.

The Sun calms down in December

It’s that time again! As I do every month, it’s time to post Space Weather Prediction Center’s monthly updated graph showing the Sun’s solar cycle sunspot activity. The graph itself can be seen below the fold.

After five months of quickly increasing sunspot activity, the Sun in December finally took a rest, with the sunspot numbers dropping down to almost exactly the solar activity scientists had expected at this time, according to their May 2009 prediction. Interestingly, this might be the first time since I began tracking the solar cycle in 2008 that the prediction actually matched that month’s activity.
» Read more

Ramping way up!

The monthly update of the solar cycle graph produced by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center was released yesterday. I have posted the graph below the fold.

The fast ramp up to solar maximum is continuing. For the fifth month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity leaped upward. Not only has the sunspot activity once again exceeded the prediction for this particular time period, the activity is shot way above the solar maximum peak predicted for several years hence. This behavior is far different then what we’ve seen during the just completed long and deep solar minimum, when the Sun consistently underperformed the predictions for sunspot activity. Now it appears to be outperforming the predictions.
» Read more

Two climate papers of interest

When I appear on radio and am talking about climate change, I often get the same questions over and over.

  • Is the climate warming?
  • If so, is human behavior an important factor for causing that warming?
  • How much does the sun influence climate change?
  • Is the ozone hole linked to climate change?

The truth is that, right now, no one can really answer any of these questions with any certainty. While a large majority of climate scientists might be convinced the Earth is warming and that human activity is causing this warming, the public has great doubts about these claims, partly because of the untrustworthy behavior of many of these climate scientists and partly because the science itself is often confusing.

We simply don’t yet have enough data. Worse, much of the data we do have is tainted, unreliable because of the misconduct and political activism of the very climate scientists who are trying to prove the case for man-made global warming.

Two new papers, published today in Geophysical Research Letters, add some interesting but small data points to this whole subject.
» Read more

A fired up Sun

As it does every month, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center today released its monthly update showing the ongoing changes of the Sun’s solar cycle sunspot activity. I have posted the graph below the fold.

For the fourth month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity has leaped upward. In fact, for the first time since I have been tracking sunspot activity, beginning in 2008, the Sun’s sunspot activity exceeds the predicted activity by a significant amount. Since the end of the previous maximum, the Sun had consistently failed to meet the expectations of solar scientists by producing far fewer sunspots than expected.

In the past few months, however, the Sun has recovered, its activity firing upward, including some of the most active and largest sunspots in years.
» Read more

The long minimum continues

Though it has been very clear for the past few months that the sun has finally transitioned from solar minimum and begun its ramp up to solar maximum, that ramp up has also been very slow and wimpy.

On October 9, 2011 the scientists at Physikalisch- Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD) posted an updated summary of the satellite data that has been carefully measuring the variation of the sun’s total solar irradiance since 1978. The graph below, which can be found here [pdf], brings that data up through the present. (I had posted the previous update about a year ago.)

Total solar irradiance

I have added a brown line to illustrate how deep the recently ended solar minimum was, compared to previous minimums. Note also that this most recent minimum would also be far below the minimum prior to 1975. I have also added a blue line to show that the sun has only very recently finally brightened enough to finally exceed the previous minimum. All told, the sun remained dimmer than the previous minimum for over five years!
» Read more

1 5 6 7 8