Solar Cycle 24

[Rick]

Sunspots make the world hot and wet
But climate change still down to humans

News that paleoclimatologists at Paul Smith's College in New York state have found a link between sunspot activity and rain reaches us on the same day that other mathematicians at the University of Washington have uncovered a correlation between variations in the global temperature and the cycle of solar activity.

The mathematicians Ka-Kit Tung and Charles Camp looked at satellite data on solar radiation and surface temperatures over the past 50 years. They report a 0.2°C shift in average temperatures across the planet as the sunspot cycle plays out, New Scientist reports (the work is published in Geophysical Research Letters).

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/09/sunspots_bad_mkay/

[Mike]

NOAA: Sunspot is Harbinger of New Solar Cycle, Increasing Risk for Electrical Systems

A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late yesterday when the cycle's first sunspot appeared in the sun's Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said.

More: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080104_sunspot.html

[mickw]

After months of relative quietude, a trio of new sunspot groups appeared this week and they are all growing rapidly.
But there's something strange about these spots.

More:  http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080326-sunspots-erupt.html

[Mike]

The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites.

That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment."

The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual.

"It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. "That's a small concern, a very small concern."

The Hinode satellite is a Japanese mission with the United States and United Kingdom as partners. The satellite carries three telescopes that together show how changes on the sun's surface spread through the solar atmosphere. MSU researchers are among those operating the X-ray telescope. The satellite orbits 431 miles above ground, crossing both poles and making one lap every 95 minutes, giving Hinode an uninterrupted view of the sun for several months out of the year.

Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. Minimum activity generally occurs as the cycles change. Solar activity refers to phenomena like sunspots, solar flares and solar eruptions. Together, they create the weather than can disrupt satellites in space and technology on earth.

The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why.

"It's a dead face," Tsuneta said of the sun's appearance.

Read more........... http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=5982&log

[mickw]

It's probably because we've got a Coronado   

[Sue]

Are the NASA solar scientists close to admitting their models might be wrong?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/01/nasa-headline-deep-solar-minimum/

If you are interested you might also like to look at this from Oct 08

http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/Archibald2009E&E.pdf

[Rick]

The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.

There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.

The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008473.stm

[Rick]

The Sun's "Solar Cycle 24", which kicked off back in December 2008, will be "the weakest since 1928", according to an international panel of experts.

The "nearly unanimous prediction", as New Scientist describes it, follows a certain amount of hemming and hawing as to quite how much sunspot activity we could expect in the run-up to the "solar maximum", now set for May 2013.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/11/cycle_24_prediction/

[mickw]

Scientists have been puzzling in recent months over the sun's lack of spots, which signifies very low activity. The sun is in the midst of an expected low in its 11-year cycle of sunspots and storms but the lull has gone on much longer than expected.

Now researchers think they know why.

A jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots. It'll all be back to normal soon, according to a NASA statement.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090617-solar-minimum.html

[mickw]

After one of the longest sunspot droughts in modern times, solar activity picked up quickly over the weekend.

A new group of sunspots developed, and while not dramatic by historic standards, the spots were the most significant in many months.

"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif., said on Spaceweather.com.

Solar activity goes in a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots are the visible signs of that activity, and they are the sites from which massive solar storms lift off. The past two years have marked the lowest low in the cycle since 1913, and for a while scientists were wondering if activity would ever pick back up.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090706-sunspot-activity.html

[mickw]

Just looking at the number of sunspots doesn't provide a full picture of how the sun's solar energy impacts Earth, a new study suggests. The findings contradict previous thinking about how the sun behaves during low points in its solar cycle.

"What we're realizing is that the sunspots do not tell the whole story," said Sarah Gibson, a scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090917-sunspot-solar-cycle.html

[Carole]

Very interesting.  Thanks Mick

[Rick]

(From the school of journalism...)

A question posed to Aberdeen tourist information staff could get easier to answer as an "awakening" Sun raises chances of seeing the Aurora Borealis.

Tourism staff have been asked in the past when the "lights were turned on".

Experts have been reporting that the sun was stirring after a period of low activity.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8510377.stm

[Rick]

Complex Eruption on the Sun:  On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted.

More on SpaceWeather.com (2nd August 2010)

[mickw]

A bit more:   Space.com

[mickw]

Even More :

Space.com

[Rick]

The material belched from the sun during the Aug. 1 flare is not expected to cause any disturbances on Earth other than creating spectacular auroras. Auroras are created when charged particles are caught by Earth's magnetic field and interact with the atmosphere above the poles.

The Aug. 1 solar flare was a moderate C-class flare. The coronal mass ejection it set off created a strong so-called geomagnetic storm that lasted nearly 12 hours – enough time for auroras to spread from Europe to North America, NASA officials said in a statement.

Stronger solar storms could cause adverse impacts to space-based assets and technological infrastructure on Earth.

So much excitement over a relatively small event. What's the betting the next really big one will be ignored completely (until...)...

[PhilB]

.......What's the betting the next really big one will be ignored completely (until...)...

...it takes out the National Grid   

You're probably right 

[Rick]

Irregular heartbeat of the Sun driven by double dynamo

A new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645. Results will be presented today by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

It is 172 years since a scientist first spotted that the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years. But every cycle is a little different and none of the models of causes to date have fully explained fluctuations. Many solar physicists have put the cause of the solar cycle down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the Sun. Now, Zharkova and her colleagues have found that adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, completes the picture with surprising accuracy.

More: http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo