“Ulysses ends its career after revealing that the magnetic field emanating from the sun’s poles is much weaker than previously observed. This could mean the upcoming solar maximum period will be less intense than in recent history. “ click for a larger image Click for larger image International Mission Studying Sun to Conclude June 12, 2008 PASADENA, Calif. - After more than 17 years of pioneering solar science, a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission to study the sun will end on or about July 1. T... lire la suite
Animation courtesy Michael Ronayne. Click for larger, slower speed animation NASA’s David Hathaway just recently updated his solar cycle prediction and has pushed cycle 24 into the future a little more once again. Though to read his latest update on 10/03/08 at his prediction page here, you wouldn’t know it, because the page is mostly tech speak and reviews of semi relevant papers.
What a day! First a major storm whacks the west coast, now we have the official start of solar cycle 24. Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. The signal for the start of a new cycle is sighting a particular kind of sunspot.
As I mentioned a few days ago, there was a panel that NASA convened to look at solar cycle 23/24 predictions. From this story on space. com where they talk about the opposing views solar scientists have for cycle 24 they offer some opinions. NOAA Space Environment Center scientist Douglas Biesecker, who chaired the panel, said in a statement:
Click image for movie - note download is large 2. MB A guest post by Michael Ronayne Note: Mike has created a movie (solar_cycle_23-24_sunspots. gif large (2. MB) animated GIF) that shows how the cycle 23 forecast has progressed through time. Given that NASA’s David Hathaway recently commented on SpaceWeather that we are still seeing Cycle 23 spots, this seemed like a good time to post Mike’s effort.
Many have sought, but few have found, a connection between the solar cycle and global temperature. Such a connection only makes sense; solar irradiance varies with the solar cycle, being greater when the sunspot cycle is at maximum and less when it’s at minimum. And solar irradiance means energy coming into the climate system;
On Climate Audit’s unthreaded comment forum, David Archibald noted some interesting facts about the solar cycle lengths and upcoming Solar Cycle 24, and provided the graph above. Solar Cycle 20 was slightly longer than average at 11. years. The average solar cycle length from 1643 to 1996 is 11.
Solar Cycle 24 just can’t seem to get rolling. IPS announced today (IPS is the Australian Space Weather Agency) , that it has changed its forecast for Solar Cycle 24, pushing it’s start into the future by six months. They write: Due to the proximity of the IPS predicted rise of solar cycle 24
Ulysses ends its career after revealing that the magnetic field emanating from the sun’s poles is much weaker than previously observed. This could mean the upcoming solar maximum period will be less intense than in recent history. click for a larger image International Mission Studying Sun to Conclude
Calling cycle 24, calling cycle 24……where are you? Image from SOHO, inset added by the author The SIDC in Belgium just issed an end to their “all quiet alert” Issued: Feb 26 1255 UTC Product: documentation at http: www. sidc. be/products/quieta
Current SOHO: The Sun is blank again This from Jan Janssens SOLAEMON the SOLar Activity & Earth MONitor web page: In this statistical research, transits to cycles 12, 13 and 14 were considered, as well as transits to cycles 21, 22 and 23. The current transition towards SC24 was compared with foregoing evolutions.
Click for magnified view of the sun showing the most recent spot. Sunspot 987, and now newly emerging 988 are shown above (refresh if you don’t see them). With both being near the equator, they are still a cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude. Cycle 24 remains late.
Click for magnified view of the sun showing the most recent spot. Sunspot 987, 988, and now newly emerging 989 are shown above. With all being near the equator, they are still a cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude. The most recent magnetogram shows them to have the magentic polarity of cycle 23 spots, in addition to being near the equator.
I found a reference to this article while looking at Leif Svalgaard’s website, and since I missed it the first time around, and because the message is still valid, I thought I’d reprint it here. Also, the artwork they provided a hi-res link to makes a great desktop wallpaper. Anthony
This is one must-have cute home accessory - the solar powered bicycle rider lamp. The cuteness factor is propped up by the fact that whenever this lamp is exposed to sunlight, the bicycle rider within starts pedalling, turning the lamp into a delightful piece of art. The solar panel itself is on a rotatable base so that you can easily catch the source of sunlight.
The sun recently displayed some impressive prominences, and at the same time produced another “tiny tim” cycle 24 spot that seems to have escaped notice. Michael Ronayne helps with a blink comparator image that helps spot it. No number has been assigned as yet but he had an interestig exchange about it with Dr.
Instructables user dpearce1 made a solar-powered motorized trike, and an instruction set to go along with it. From the instructable: The purpose of this project is to build a vehicle that:
Part II By Basil Copeland and Anthony Watts In Part I, we presented evidence of a noticable periodicity in globally averaged temperatures when filtered with Hodrick-Prescott smoothing. Using a default value of lamda of 100, we saw a bidecadal pattern in the rate of change in the smoothed temperature series that appears closely related to 22 year Hale solar cycles.
A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia titled: Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle? contains a warning about earthly climate change not immediately obvious from the abstract: Based on our claim that changes in the Sun's equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun's orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun's meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.
NOTE: This essay represents a collaboration over a period of a week via email between myself and Basil Copeland. Basil did the statistical heavy lifting and the majority of writing, while I provided suggestions, reviews, some ideas, editing, and of course this forum. Basil deserves all our thanks for his labor.
As I’ve been noting regularly, Solar cycle 24 is late, and has produced only one spot this year, on January 4th. Since then, nothing, except a small parade of near equatorial oriented cycle 23 spots. Now we see the faint beginnings of a spot at high latitude, with proper magnetic polarity.