Are Sunspots Disappearing?

Are Sunspots Disappearing?

www.spaceweather.com

According to Bill Livingston and Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, sunspot magnetic fields are waning.

The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992

(visit the link for the full news article)

Quite an interesting article here on Space Weather. Its intriguing that the Sun is expected to ramp up its sunspot activity towards the next solar maximum of 2013, but at the moment not looking like its going to fire up any time soon.

It seems no-one including NASA or top Scientists such as Michio Kaku can stick to one story about whats going on.

www.spaceweather.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

here is Michio Kaku talking on MSM about the next solar maximum -



and NASA talking of the deep minimum at the moment -

science.nasa.gov...

[edit on 22-8-2009 by grantbeed]

Originally posted by grantbeed

Are Sunspots Disappearing?

www.spaceweather.com

According to Bill Livingston and Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, sunspot magnetic fields are waning.

The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992

(visit the link for the full news article)

This started being noticed at the beginning of 2008 when Cycle 24 was supposed to start kicking into gear , in anticipation of a hyperactive solar maximum in 2012.

It's probably the reason why global temps have nose dived the past three years, which puts a stake through the heart of the Manmade Global Warming Delusion.

reply to post by grantbeed


No one can stick to one story because no one knows what in the bleepity blank is going on.

We have a bunch of ideas and theories.

The only thing for sure that we know is that the Sun has less sunpots.

maybe there "just saying that" so the mass calm down?
would it be the first time they lied? ha

reply to post by MikeboydUS


i agree. its going to be a case of, "wait and see what happens" in the next few years for sure.

reply to post by VinceP1974

This started being noticed at the beginning of 2008 when Cycle 24 was supposed to start kicking into gear , in anticipation of a hyperactive solar maximum in 2012.

Actually cycle 24 has come and gone we are now in cycle 25. Dr Leif Svalgaard is a solar physist

Leif Svalgaard writes: Some speculation that solar cycle 25 has already begun:
xrt.cfa.harvard.edu...

ABSTRACT Recent increases in spatial and temporal resolution for solar telescopes sensitive to EUV and X-ray radiation have revealed the prevalence of transient jet events in polar coronal holes. Using data collected by the X-Ray Telescope on Hinode, Savcheva et al. (2007) confirmed the observation, made first by the Soft X-ray Telescope on Yohkoh, that some jets exhibit a motion transverse to the jet outflow direction.

The velocity of this transverse motion is, on average, 20 kms−1. The direction of the transverse motion, in combination with the standard reconnection model for jet production (e.g. Shibata et al. 1992), reflects the magnetic polarity orientation of the ephemeral active region at the base of the jet. From this signature, we find that during the present minimum phase of the solar cycle the jet-base ephemeral active regions in the polar coronal holes had a preferred east-west direction, and that this direction reversed during the cycle’s progression through minimum.

In late 2006 and early 2007, the preferred direction was that of the active regions of the coming sunspot cycle (Cycle 24), but in late 2008 and early 2009 the preferred direction has been that of the active regions of sunspot cycle 25. These findings are consistent with the results of Wilson et al. (1988) that there is a high latitude expansion of the solar activity cycle.

Full paper here: xrt.cfa.harvard.edu...

Landscheidt predicted this minimum several years ago and people laughed at him. I wish he was still alive to say I told you so.

Originally posted by crimvelvet
reply to post by VinceP1974

 

Actually cycle 24 has come and gone we are now in cycle 25. Dr Leif Svalgaard is a solar physist

Yeah I hear of this.

It's pretty interesting because what he's saying is that the sun has completely skipped a Sunspot cycle.

I wonder what the implications of that are.

The author of the Harvard paper said that the idea that Cycle25 started.. well here's what he said:

Leif Svalgaard (13:29:02) :

So far, this is only a speculation based on very little data and a model of the ‘jets’. It is fun to see how some people will go off on a tangent on this and deduce all kind of weird things, and ‘what did I tell you’-stuff. All this is, is a suggestion that we observe this phenomenon [which we couldn't have before] carefully. Perhaps the model is not quite right, perhaps the noise is too big. Just like with the Livingston-Penn finding. Like with L-P, I know some of the authors and can vouch for them [not that they need it].

reply to post by VinceP1974

The author of the Harvard paper said that the idea that Cycle25 started.. well here's what he said

Actually it is either cycle 23 or cycle 25. The sun switches magnetic polarities every other cycle. high-latitude sunspots forming with a polarity opposite to that of Cycle 24 sunspots, could be considered Cycle 25 spots. As I have been following this for the last couple of years spots have been IDed as Cycle 23 or Cycle 24 and then back to Cycle 23 again

What ever the heck is going on it is not business as usual. Mother nature has a way of teaching men humility when they get too uppity. I imagine she is laughing at us right now

reply to post by VinceP1974



Actually this was noticed back in 2006, i reported this in the forums back then.

May 10, 2006: The Sun's Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "It's off the bottom of the charts," he says. "This has important repercussions for future solar activity."

The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the Sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to perform one complete circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle, and that's why the slowdown is important.

"Normally, the conveyor belt moves about 1 meter per second—walking pace," says Hathaway. "That's how it has been since the late 19th century." In recent years, however, the belt has decelerated to 0.75 m/s in the north and 0.35 m/s in the south. "We've never seen speeds so low."

According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future. A slow belt means lower solar activity; a fast belt means stronger activity. The reasons for this are explained in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.

"The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries," says Hathaway.

science.nasa.gov...

When this happens, all Solar Activity diminishes, including Sunspots, the strength of Solar magnetic storms, the Solar wind, TSI, etc.

If this continues some more years we will find ourselves in another possible Little Ice Age.


[edit on 23-8-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

Originally posted by crimvelvet
................................................
What ever the heck is going on it is not business as usual. Mother nature has a way of teaching men humility when they get too uppity. I imagine she is laughing at us right now

And i think you are right, mother nature is laughing at those people who think they have more power than Earth itself, or the Oceans, and the Sun, and even more power than the entire solar system, and the different regions our solar system encounters which affects the dynamics of the Solar System and can cause dramatic Climate Changes like we have seen in most planets, and even moons with an atmosphere on this same Solar System.

We have been observing dramatic Climate Changes occurring in most planets and Moons with an atmosphere, just like on Earth and the AGWers claim "it is just coincidence"...

reply to post by ElectricUniverse

And i think you are right, mother nature is laughing at those people who think they have more power than Earth itself, or the Oceans, and the Sun, and even more power than the entire solar system, and the different regions our solar system encounters which affects the dynamics of the Solar System and can cause dramatic Climate Changes like we have seen in most planets, and even moons with an atmosphere on this same Solar System.

We have been observing dramatic Climate Changes occurring in most planets and Moons with an atmosphere, just like on Earth and the AGWers claim "it is just coincidence"...

The timing is certainly enough to make you think she is ROTFL I am afraid she will really teach us a lesson in humility by sending us into at least a Little Ice Age. If that happens it will be much worse than "global warming"

David Archibald, an Australian Scientist did some rough calculations to predict the impact of the strong climatic changes that occur during the turning points of a Gleissberg cycle on US agriculture. He predicted a 20% decline in production. For Canada and Russia, at more northern latitudes the reduction could be as great as 50%. icecap.us...

The big consequence of this is that it will shrink the growing season. The 2.2 degree decline I am predicting will take two weeks off the growing season at both ends. Next decade will not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. For farmers further south, farm production will decline but that production will be worth a considerable amount more.

The grain traders have maneuvered the USDA into abandoning the grain reserve program and now the USA has no more reserves. If Congress passes Cap and Trade and the scientists who are predicting a grand solar mininum are correct and temperatures drop, we could see major famine. As a farmer I am going to "take advantage" of "cap and trade" by switching to planting trees for corporations who want "offset credits" of course this is not going to put food on anyone's table.

According to the Heritage Foundation, farm income could drop by $8 billion under cap-and-trade—and offsets will make up less than 10 percent of this lost income. And many farmers, like fruit, vegetable, rice and cotton farmers, will not be able to participate in an offset program because their crops are simply not suitable for no-till or other practices to sequester CO2 in soil. They will simply be stuck with significantly higher energy costs. climaterealists.com...

Barton Briggs, one of Wall Street's most legendary investment strategists, is advising the rich and powerful to buy up farms and stock them with "seed, fertilizer, canned food. wine, medicine. clothes etc." (and the "etc" would seem to mean guns to keep away the rest of us warmwell.blogspot.com...

I wonder if "they" know something that we do not.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by crimvelvet]

[edit on 23-8-2009 by crimvelvet]

reply to post by crimvelvet


They know what some of us already know, especially on ATS.

I don't think survivalist strategies by wall street have anything to do with a little ice age but more to do with the potential for a severe economic crisis.

Plus its a good investment for unforseen events like little ice ages, energy crises, pandemics, etc. Some of the doctors here locally, since last year, have been doing the same, especially investing in off the grid power production.

These people are far from stupid, they know a storm is coming.

Originally posted by grantbeed
It seems no-one including NASA or top Scientists such as Michio Kaku can stick to one story about whats going on.

It seems like every time science gets an answer, they get another question to go with it. At this rate it seems like we never will truly know everything.

But having done a lot of professional work with statistics and statistical data, I can tell you that statistics demands that if you want to make any accurate cycle-to-cycle predictions, that you need data on more than 2 cycles. A LOT more than 2 cycles. And per the article in the OP:

The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992.

So they will only have 2 complete cycles by 2014.By then we will know a little bit more, but to truly understand their new measurements will probably take decades and several more cycles.

I know we have data going back before 1992 but that uses other measurement methods.

I do find it interesting that the geologic record of the earth shows evidence of distinct climactic shifts by the Earth, so the data is clear that these shifts happened, but the reasons for some of the shifts are not well understood.

One of the possible explanations among many for the climactic shifts, is changes in the output of the sun's energy. Maybe the sun isn't as stable and predictable as we thought it was and that possibility may be true. When you look at the historical data on these climate changes, the temperature drops are quite rapid.

So if the next ice age is starting, while it could take a while to build up an ice sheet over Manhattan like we had in the last ice age, the temperature drop there (and many other places) could happen much more quickly. And if that happens, we'll have bigger problems than keeping warm, like trying to grow enough food to feed everybody, so yeah I don't think survivalists are nuts, we've clearly had global climate changes before and almost certainly will again. The only question is, when will the next one happen, and is it starting now? Are these changes in solar activity what the first signs look like? That's anybody's guess, only time will tell.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by VinceP1974

 

Actually this was noticed back in 2006, i reported this in the forums back then.



When this happens, all Solar Activity diminishes, including Sunspots, the strength of Solar magnetic storms, the Solar wind, TSI, etc.

If this continues some more years we will find ourselves in another possible Little Ice Age.


[edit on 23-8-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

Interesting.

I'm sure some Global Warming Alarmists will just call us deniers.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by VinceP1974

 

Actually this was noticed back in 2006, i reported this in the forums back then.

Their prediction for Cycle 24 was totally wrong

Hathaway's prediction should not be confused with another recent forecast: A team led by physicist Mausumi Dikpata of NCAR has predicted that Cycle 24, peaking in 2011 or 2012, will be intense. Hathaway agrees: "Cycle 24 will be strong. Cycle 25 will be weak. Both of these predictions are based on the observed behavior of the conveyor belt."

They made more prediction for 24

science.nasa.gov...

March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.

Like the quiet before a storm.

This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.