Our Sun: A Little Slow On the Uptake for Cycle 24
April 27, 2009 by Mary Anne Simpson
Current Image of Sun-April 26, 2009. Via: Mauna Loa Solar Observatory
A very recent article carried by the BBC called, 'Quiet Sun Baffling Astronomers' sent me in a twitter of research activity. The BBC article's head notes include "The Sun is the Dimmest It Has Been for Nearly A Century" and a suggestion we could be possibly looking at another Maunder Minimum which occurred in the mid-seventeenth century and lasted some 70-years which some believe led to a mini ice age causing havoc throughout North America and Europe.
In fact, according to the Hinode (Solar-B) project and the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado and other experts on the Sun, Solar Cycle 24 is beginning slowly. Current thinking aided by sophisticated equipment suggest more precise information is needed to connect the Mini Ice Age to low sunspot activity. Some definitions and background are necessary for a full understanding of the propositions advanced.
Sunspot Cycles:
A sunspot is visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope and is identified as a dark spot on the Sun's surface. It is a dark spot because it is cooler than the rest of the Sun, with a temperature running 4,000 K compared to the rest of the Sun's surface material which runs over 5,800 K. The brightness factor of sunspots compared to the rest of the Sun's surface is relative. A sunspot if excised from the Sun would shine as bright as the Moon. The Sunspot is noted for intense magnetic activity which inhibits convection and results in the reduced temperature.
Sunspot Cycles recordings were first made by Chinese astronomers in 800 B.C. Early mystics and astrologers kept track of Sunspots because it was believed the activity of the Sun foretold important events. Soon after the telescope was discovered in the 1600s scientists were able to observe and record the Sun's 27-day rotation, but there were mixed theories on the spots on the Sun's surface. Some thought the spots were dark clouds in the atmosphere of the Sun while others thought the spots represented undiscovered planets crossing the Sun's surface.
German astronomer Samuel Schwabe discovered the increase and decrease of yearly sunspot counts in 1843 and guessed the cycle length to be around 10-years. His work was enhanced by French physicists Foucault and Fizeau and they captured the first photographs of the Sun and sunspots in 1845. Their work was followed by the discovery in 1852 that the period of the sunspot cycle coincided with a period of geomagnetic activity on Earth. The Sun-Earth connection was made and the founding of space weather science debuted.
The period of 1645 to 1715 called the Mauder Minimum is noted for a period where there were very few sunspots and a corresponding bitter cold Winters in Europe and North American. This period on Earth is known as the Little Ice Age. Parenthetically, drawing a direct cause and effect relationship between the two events is the subject of heated debate among scientists. The Medieval Maximum period occurred in 1100 to 1250 marked by unusually warm temperatures on Earth and a very high level of solar activity and sunspots. The Dalton Minimum occurred in the 1800s and is noted for fairly low sunspot activity and cooler temperatures on Earth. Since 1900, with the exception of very recent history, scientists have called the relatively high sunspot count a period called the Modern Maximum.
Current Thinking:
Cooperation between NASA, EESA, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, HAO, The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Hinode (Solar-B). IAC and counterparts around the globe have de-mystified and almost laid to rest previously advanced ideas about the Sun-Earth link and sunspots.
Dr. Peter Gilman's, the recipient of the prestigious Hale Prize from the American Astronomical Society has spent four-decades researching the Sun's different rotation discovered what is known as the Butterflydiagrams. This pattern was developed by plotting the sunspots from the Sun's poles towards its equator during what is considered presently to be the 11-year solar cycle. His collaborative work with Mausumi Dikpati intends to produce a unified theory of the solar cycle and elaborate on his 'active longitudes' work where magnetic fields are strong and sunspots recur over time.
Other work concludes that during peak sunspot solar cycles a great bundle of plasma escapes from the Sun. This coronal mass ejection. (CME) accelerates through the corona quickly. If it is pointed at the Earth, the CME will irradiate everything in its path, disrupt radio signals, interrupt circuitries in satellites, knock out power grids on Earth and generally create a beautiful disruptive high-altitude auroras.
Most experts in the Solar-Earth and Space Weather field agree with HAO, Boulder's scientists finding in 2004 that more work needs to be done to show a direct correlation between historical data of the various epic low sunspots or high sunspot periods and Earth's Little Ice Age or Medieval Maximum. It could be a combination of a cold snap and warming trend on Earth in combination with the dormant or active sunspot activity. Research is on going.
BBC's Confusion Over Low Sunspot Period and Global Dimming:
A period of low activity in sunspots on the Sun's surface is not the same as the theory of Global Dimming or the dimming of the Sun. The English Scientist Gerry Stanhill discovered while working in Israel a marked decrease in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. In the USA, a 10-percent decrease, the former Soviet Union, nearly 30-percent and globally a decrease in sunlight reaching Earth. The mainstream opinion on the cause of Global Dimming is the increased presence in the atmosphere of particulate matter and aerosols from burning fossil fuels and other human activity. In the Global Dimming scenario, the polluted matter acts like a mirror reflecting back into the space the Sun's rays. The effect on Earth is drought, crop damage and potentially harm to human health.
In Conclusion:
Strong evidence points to a connection between weather on Earth and activity on the Sun. The Hinode (Solar-B) satellite was launched in 2006 from Japan carrying three different telescopes on board and was placed on a heliosynchronous orbit that allows it to track the solar disc and perform detailed observations. Tracking the sunspot cycles began in the early 1700s with what is called Cycle 1. According to the latest from Hinode (Solar-B) log, the current "Cycle 24 is Beginning Slowly". They reference Cycle 23 which peaked in 2001 and while shorter in duration than most, showed some of the largest Sun flares ever recorded. Some are predicting Cycle 24 is going to be a Hot Tamale (at its peak) when it kicks into gear sometime in 2009 or 2010.
For More Info:
Hinode Solar-B; http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/
Predicting the Strength of solar cycle 24 using a flux transport; http://192.211.16.13/z/zita/articles/Dik06GRLMar.pdf
HAO, Boulder Colorado; http://www.hao.ucar.edu
BBC Article; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8008473.stm
Our Sun: A Little Slow On the Uptake for Cycle 24
© 2009 PhysOrg.com
Nov 10, 2008 |
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About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
prove false again? Two hundred more. - Samuel Butler, 1680
http://www.epa.go...ghg.html
This gas is visible from space...
Guess the influence of energy companies will keep people oblivious until the big die off. Or maybe not.
Lets proceed with caution shall we.
Astronomers have so far been only able to measure the cyclic pattern of the second hand--the 11-year sunspot cycle. The observational records are not yet sufficient to decipher the patterns associated with the sun's longer "minute and hour hands" cycles yet. It is likely that Solar Cycle 24 has been in effect for 2 years already but it has fallen into the "shadow" of the minute or the hour hand, and it is being suppressed. The effect can be likened to a clock's second hand becoming invisible when it goes over the minute or the hour hand. If the cycle 24 ever decides to show up this year, it would probably only last for 9 years then another 11-year cycle would start. However, if it doesn't start showing up this year, we will be witnessing an extraordinary event since the 11-year cycle rarely, if ever, lasted less than 9 years since the early 20th century.
At any rate, hopefully we are not at the grand conjunction of all clock hands; otherwise, we might be heading for an Ice Age.
There's a common philosophical error in human thought concerning cycles. Everyone assumes things have an order that's repeatable. What if this weren't the case for the sun and our climate over lengthy amounts of time?
What if instead the sun's activities vary because the solar system as a whole is passing through a regions of space with varying densities/gravitation? The Milky Way is a giant spiral, surely there are these waves spirally around the center. Our solar system is not staying in an even orbit so we're passing through various ripples as we travel.
If Sol is passing through a region of marginally greater or lesser density/gravity, it could affect more than just the sun. It could be affecting it's planets' climate as well.
If this were the case, it definitely is not a man-made issue.
I totally agree. We are not that important. But one thing that I want to add is that even if we don't have such an influence we can be carefull with what we burn and emit. But that is more of an ethical discussion
Cycle 24 naturally shows some signs of beginning yet cycle 23 refuses to end. The historic record clearly demonstrates that extended minimums tend to be followed by a shorter period of relatively lowered intensity. The closest corrolary to an extremely extended minimum would seem to show that for many cycles to come, sunspot activity can virtually shut down to begin oscillating around a far lower average. Perhaps similar to what is presently occuring with 10.7 cm radio wave flux?
http://www.swpc.n...arCycle/
The longer that cycle 23 persists, the more it would appear that the "modern maximum" will be followed by the "modern minimum".
DoktorSerendipitus said, "It is likely that Solar Cycle 24 has been in effect for 2 years already but it has fallen into the 'shadow' of the minute or the hour hand, and it is being suppressed...hopefully we are not at the grand conjunction of all clock hands".
A great number of cycles seem to be conjoining around 2012.
Another analogy comes from the Mayan calendar, which is cycle-based:
As I visualize that calendar in use, the concentric rings are like piston rings--they have a slot. The very center and and the perimeter of the calendar form "sun" and "no sun" regions. In 2012 all slots will be aligned and for a moment, there is no difference between "sun" and "no sun" after which the calendar must be used in reverse--if "no sun" was previously at the perimeter, it is now in the center.
If we are still experiencing an ongoing minimum in 2011, I suspect that cycle 24 be brief and highly excited for a short span with perhaps sufficient intensity to induce magnetic shift in the earth when the sun makes its "normal" shift.
http://www.homepa...nkov.htm
While it is certain that we are poisoning our soil and water, and generally disregarding our place in the grand order of things; it is sheer arrogance to think that we are the sole proprietors of this current heating trend.
This existing debate is distracting us from more important focuses. Let us learn exactly how the sun affects us and act/produce accordingly.
1. "The Sun influences us in many ways and is central to life on Earth," and
2. "Although humans have been studying the Sun for millennia, we still know relatively little."
[See: Richard Gray, "Space missions to visit the sun," The Telegraph.co.uk (25 April 2009)]
http://www.telegr...sun.html
The former USSR launched Sputnik in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, and President Eisenhower responded by creating NASA to protect our national security.
The central question is this: Why do scientists still know so little about cycles of surface magnetic activity in the star that heats planet Earth and sustains life - fifty years after NASA was established?
I would like to know how the opinions of others compare with my experiences as a former NASA PI for Apollo samples.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com
You can tell because the person did research to write the article, and was not a scientist with any knowledge of what they were copying or saying.
Some of it half wrong, some of it all wrong. but the claim of the start makes it sound that your getting everything right.
Some definitions and background are necessary for a full understanding of the propositions advanced.
And then goes on to mish mosh things%u2026
Current thinking aided by sophisticated equipment suggests more precise information is needed to connect the Mini Ice Age to low sunspot activity
This is a way of saying %u201Cignore this information since it doesn%u2019t jive with the collective%u201D (the more precise information cant come since the mini ice age was in the past, and they have to wait for another one now to do so)
The brightness factor of sunspots compared to the rest of the Sun's surface is relative.
Said this way, everything is relative, and the statement carries no meaning.
The prior sentence gives you temperatures of 4000k for the sunspot, and over 5000k for the rest of the sun
This is an absolute, not a relative measurement%u2026 Kelvin is tied to absolute ZERO.
A sunspot if excised from the Sun would shine as bright as the Moon.
This is a completely fallacious statement. How close is it? the same distance as now?
Or next to the moon? Total output is a function of luminosity per square feet AND how many square feet you have.
A sunspot could hold the planet earth in it. so this statement is also meaningless as it stands%u2026
Put all the talk as to needing and not needing a telescope, and you realize that that fact is also meaningless
Since lenses or a pin hole is doing the same task, but you don%u2019t call it a telescope.
So its misleading at best.
Then a bunch of useless history%u2026
And then a statement like this%u2026
Cooperation between NASA, EESA, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, HAO, The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Hinode (Solar-B). IAC and counterparts around the globe have de-mystified and almost laid to rest previously advanced ideas about the Sun-Earth link and sunspots.
If its de-mystified, then why cant they explain the current minimum and then say with certainty (with explanation), whats going on?
With this followup
His collaborative work with Mausumi Dikpati intends to produce a unified theory of the solar cycle and elaborate on his 'active longitudes' work where magnetic fields are strong and sunspots recur over time.
If its demystified, then what are we waiting for? Wouldn%u2019t part of that demystification be the unified theory above? and if he hasn%u2019t written it, then how has it been peer reviewed and demystify%u2026 it may be wrong!!!
So in essence he is asserting the results of a paper not yet written.
At that point I would wonder where the fifth ace came from.
Then there is a paragraph inserted after this that mentions solar flares%u2026 but he doesn%u2019t call them that..
He calls them coronal mass injections%u2026 doesn%u2019t he sound smart by obfuscating?
Most experts in the Solar-Earth and Space Weather field agree with HAO%u2026
Wait a minute%u2026 we went from its demystified, to we are waiting for his unified theory to be written..
To an assertion of most%u2026 addition is demystified%u2026 so ALL who understand it are on the same page.
I guess the author doesn%u2019t understand the words they are using, and hopes the readers don%u2019t either.
But the rest of the sentence does even more to the assertion above it.
Most experts in the Solar-Earth and Space Weather field agree with HAO, Boulder's scientists finding in 2004 that more work needs to be done to show a direct correlation between historical data of the various epic low sunspots or high sunspot periods and Earth's Little Ice Age or Medieval Maximum. It could be a combination of a cold snap and warming trend on Earth in combination with the dormant or active sunspot activity.
That%u2019s not demystified to me. that%u2019s we are still trying to find it out, or bury the inconvenient information.
I ask the author.. where does the heat go in a cold snap?
You see, they are imagining things like they are in a living room..
And a living room can get hot and cold relative to the outside.
But a planet is in space. there is no other place to store heat till its being used later.
Where would it go? In space? and how would it come back from there?
It could be a combination of a cold snap and warming trend on Earth in combination with the dormant or active sunspot activity.
%u201Ccold snap%u201D.. from where? the sun is like water from the tap%u2026 the earth is like a jar with a hole in it.
The size of the hole takes millennia to change, not centuries, and the flow of the water into the jar changes the flow out.
So where else could a cold snap come from than lack of enough water entering the top of the jar to offset the water leaving through the hole? doubling the CO2 cant happen for 100 years then suddenly disappear.
So all one has to do is see the rate of change.. and compare that to the sources and sinks rate of changes.
There is only one thing in this equation that changes that fast, and is the actual source of the heat.
The sun.
In fact, solar cycle 24 shows that its changes happen DAILY And accumulate over decades (or deaccumulate).
All these fast weather changes happened in a time frame under 250 years.
1645 to 1715 the Mauder Minimum
1100 to 1250 the Medieval Maximum
The author conveniently leaves out the years of the Dalton minimum.
Because its even shorter%u2026 in fact it%u2019s the shortest.. and so would do the most damage to his propagandic effort.
1790 to 1830 the Dalton minimum.
Not only does the shorter time help crush his argument%u2026
But its coming only 75 years from the prior ice age..
would show that in between there was FAST SOLAR WARMING!
the author also puts them out of order%u2026
sot he medevil maximum comes after maunder, and Dalton details left out.
putting them in would have been shorter than what was written.
So a time line looking only at this would show.
1100 to 1250 - Medieval Warm Period / Warm 150 years
1251 to 1644 - Normal? Period 394 years
1644 to 1715 %u2013 Maunder minimum mini ice age / COLD 70 years
1716 to 1789 %u2013 Normal? Period 74 years
1790 to 1830 %u2013 Dalton Minimum / Cold 40 years
Between 1100 and 1830 a period of 730 years
There was one extra warm period
Two mini ice ages
And two %u201CNormal%u201D periods..
And our global warming debate is over warming during a period smaller than the midevil warm period was!!!
NONE of the other variables change that fast. ..
So this is a political article written by someone with a political agenda and very little science knowledge
Who researched just enough to cherry pick the right facts for others slightly more ignorant than they
Then he resurrects without knowing the same theory that Hansen and others thought would bring an ice age
Before they figured that they were writing the wrong propaganda to the trend. as the one constant between us dying of an ice age and us dying on a desert planet like fictional Arakis, would be state intervention in everything, regardless of the validity or falsity of either proposition. *(they don%u2019t care which answer, they only care if the answer false or true leads the people to give them power).
The mainstream opinion on the cause of Global Dimming is the increased presence in the atmosphere of particulate matter and aerosols from burning fossil fuels and other human activity.
And of course he doesn%u2019t ask himself what was the source of all this back in 1100?
And where did it go?
You can see here
http://en.wikiped...sion.png
that vocanic eruptions ability to cool is VERY SHORT%u2026 not even a decade long..
and if you look at a timeline of great events%u2026 they do not align with the cooling warming trends
looking at the period the person selects you get..
Aug. 24 ad 79, Italy: eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, killing thousands.
Too long before the maunder%u2026
June 8 1783, Iceland: eruption of Laki volcano lasted until Feb. 1784. Haze from eruption resulted in loss of island's livestock and widespread crop failure; 9,350 deaths, mostly due to starvation.
Too small to affect the globe..
May 21 1792, Kyushu Island, Japan: collapse of old lava dome during eruption of Unzen volcano caused avalanche and tsunami that killed an estimated 14,300 people. (Most were killed by the tsunami.) Japan's greatest volcano disaster.
Too small to affect the globe that much
April 5, 10%u201311 1815, Netherlands Indies (Sumbawa, Indonesia): eruption of Tambora largest in historic times. An estimated 92,000 people were killed, about 10,000 directly as a result of explosions and ash fall and about 82,000 indirectly by starvation and disease.
Big enough but appears only at the LAST five years of DALTON..
Which means that according to how the author just explained it, Dalton should have lasted longer.
In the Global Dimming scenario, the polluted matter acts like a mirror reflecting back into the space the Sun's rays. The effect on Earth is drought, crop damage and potentially harm to human health.
Where did all this particulate matter come from? its not in the record..
And if the system is completely demystified, how can you have a SCENARIO?
Then here comes the biggest craziest thing.
The results of demystification if you read the articles coming from the expected time of cycle 24 arrival
You see every prediction under the sun%u2026 (no pun intended).
They are asserting that its beginning slowly, and SOME are predicting that cycle 24 is going to be a hot one.
If something is demystified, then one does not make predictions, one makes plans.
Addition is demystified. When I add up two numbers there is no one group that says it will be X value
And another group will say its Y value, and we will wait till it happens to find out..
Even if Y was dead on, it wasn%u2019t because it was demystified, as they predicted the outcome, not determined it.
This article, and the author that wrote it..
Wasted your life and mine with a meaningless piece for the %u2018cause%u2019
They didn%u2019t even use basic mental faculties to even see if they were making sense.
Their REASEARCH amounted to reading a paragraph or two of facts, and plagiarizing them by rewriting them
(Probably not enough to even keep us from finding the sources).
Its political trash%u2026 pretending to assert that the situation is all settled.
So we have no choice but to do what the rulers say and let them into every aspect of our lives.
This author has no place in the system he is helping create%u2026
He/she only has a place in this one, since termites are useful when destruction is the end.
Lets proceed with caution shall we.
here is how stupid this is...
you cant spend the money you make if the world fails. so waht your saying is that men so smart that tehy make billions while you cant make millions, are willing to invest in something that will result with them being massively wealthy but dead.
the logic is the same as daffy duck and bugs bunny trying to top each other on stage.
the leftists have played the top the "i speak their minds for them in my arguments and have to top the last" that they just went over the top like daffy duck and thought that self immolation would be the thing that means they won..
even bugs smartly concedded to daffy... you won, you won... and daffy says you can only do the trick once.
they are not funding this that way.
want to kow the biggest danger to global warming fruit bats?
that they willsucceed, and rather than use gas they will tap the methane hydrate fields, and warm them up for a huge massive bubble of methane into the air.
100k to 1 million pluse years of methane buildup dumped in one day...
they are actually helping to promote global warming!!! why? beacuse they are taxed to death for oil, and the states have grabbed the propperties.. and are parasitically milking them.
if we switch, they own the hydrate fields, they have no laws to prevent them. the taxes are on oil not methane, etc.
the state is so powerful that they cant avoid taxes that exeed their profits while being demonized.
so what is their only solution? demonize oil, and use the same equipment to work with the hydrates which do not have a huge legal bullwork and political justification.
guess who the shills for them are?
just as the nazies became the greem libertarian party (go see the site), they dont know that they are pushing the same thing the same exact way..
and they think they are not because they are not goostepping and wearing funny clothes (yet).
Steffen also pointed out, as many others have, the financial stake NBC Universal%u2019s parent company General Electric (NYSE:GE) has invested in cap-and-trade becoming law.
%u201COne last point, MSNBC is owned by General Electric,%u201D Steffen wrote. %u201CGE is already making money off the issue with their Carbon Credit Master Card (link from %u2018Treehugger,%u2019 no less).
Steffen even showed how much GE has spent lobbying for environmental causes, originally reported by the Washington Examiner on March 3.
%u201CInteresting note: In the fourth quarter of 2008 as GE/NBC stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying %u2014 that%u2019s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas,%u201D Steffen wrote. %u201CIn 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying. Reviewing their lobbying filings, GE%u2019s specific lobbying issues included the %u2018Climate Stewardship Act,%u2019 %u2018Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,%u2019 %u2018Global Warming Reduction Act,%u2019 %u2018Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,%u2019 %u2018Low Carbon Economy Act,%u2019 and %u2018Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.%u2019
Do you think this %u2018big business%u2019 is just concerned about the environment?%u201D
Lobbying government oficials should be against the law.
So your point is that if people disagree with you, thay are either uninformed, close minded, gullible, of evil intent, plain stupid, or some combination of the above? Hmm. I disagree. Here on PhysOrg we respect the scientific method, we eschew consensus (science isn't democracy), we insist on forming our opinions based on all facts and theories available, and we understand the limitations of computer models, and as a result the trends they suggest.
And really, you say that "...all acredited and currently publishing climate scientists in the world...[believe in the AGW theory]". Really? REALLY? You believe that? If that's so, then you aren't even trying to see all the data. Talk about stupidity.
Good example of how to misrepresent data with charts.
I suspect the energy companies are spending more money in support of AGW that they are against it. The money being spent is certainly 10 to 1000 times more by the pro-AGW crowd than by those debunking it.
No one's saying they have a better handle on global climate than all the "accredited" climate scientists, if there are any accredited climate scientists.
Even so,that doesn't make their opinion any worse since not all the climate scientist say the same thing. There are plenty that speak out against the current AGW projections. That a look at ICECAP (http://icecap.us/index.php) or Wattts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) or ICSC(http://www.climat...l.org/).
Now this is a rather strange post.Are you inferring that only one side of a scientific debate is being published or are you implying that only items published by The Cult are valid? I recall that when I began to study ecology [at university level] in 1970 that the Club of Rome published just as many porkies as Mr.Gore et al on the lines of doom and gloom and yet here we are almost 40 years on. I say here "we" are although there seem to be a lot more of us in spite of forecasts to the contrary.The Club faded away as will Gore and other alarmists and perhaps people like your good self will read as many scientific publications as you can in the hope of broadening your outlook.I have a particular interest in the Maunder Minimum as suggested by my N.de P.