Posted on 12/18/2007 5:40:18 AM PST by Red Badger
The solar physics community is abuzz this week. No, there haven't been any great eruptions or solar storms. The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11th, pictured below in a pair of images from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
From SOHO, a UV-wavelength image of the sun and a map showing positive (white) and negative (black) magnetic polarities. The new high-latitude active region is magnetically reversed, marking it as a harbinger of a new solar cycle.
It may not look like much, but "this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
For more than a year, the sun has been experiencing a lull in activity, marking the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked with many furious storms in 2000--2003. "Solar minimum is upon us," he says.
The big question now is, when will the next solar cycle begin?
It could be starting now.
"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity " means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude
The region that appeared on Dec. 11th fits both these criteria. It is high latitude (24 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. Just one problem: There is no sunspot. So far the region is just a bright knot of magnetic fields. If, however, these fields coalesce into a dark sunspot, scientists are ready to announce that Solar Cycle 24 has officially begun.
Many forecasters believe Solar Cycle 24 will be big and intense. Peaking in 2011 or 2012, the cycle to come could have significant impacts on telecommunications, air traffic, power grids and GPS systems. (And don't forget the Northern Lights!) In this age of satellites and cell phones, the next solar cycle could make itself felt as never before.
The furious storms won't start right away, however. Solar cycles usually take a few years to build to a frenzy and Cycle 24 will be no exception. "We still have some quiet times ahead," says Hathaway.
Meanwhile, all eyes are on a promising little active region. Will it become the first sunspot of a new solar cycle?
Just Cogitating,
Why the mini ice age during the 50 years without sunspots?
From 1645 to 1705 sunspots were hardly observed. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers.
There was still snow in July on the mountains of New York and New Hampshire.
There is some ‘splaining to do in a theory that says the sun’s output is constant.
Precisely!
And just to make sure it stayed dead, they killed off the entire Oldsmobile division...
Dude, 2012 is the Mayans’ Y2K. It’s simply the end of their calendar; it wasn’t made beyond that year. Although they had a highly accurate solar calendar they did not posess the knowledge to do further calculations so were stuck with an end date for their calendar. As fear would have it, the end of the calendar was interpreted by some as the ‘end of the world’. Unfortunately for the Mayans their world ended 500 years ago. Their calendar simply outlasted them.
So would that mean - although the calendar on my wall ends in two weeks the world won’t necessarily come to an end? What am I going to do with all food/fuel/ammo I have stored in the basement?
"Year"? Try "years."
Given that a solar cycle is about 11 years and the 23rd just ended, that means Solar Cycle 1 began 23*11 or 253 years ago. 2007-253 would make that ca 1754. Not unreasonable to think solar observations might have begun by then.
(Wikipedia notes the cycle was discovered mid-1800s, but extrapolated back to the mid-1700s using earlier observations.)
Even the white buffalo has been born...hmm.
Isn’t 2012 the year that some ancient calendar maker decided...
wooo... my chisel hand is really tired, that should be enough for now.
If you buy my book “The World Ends Next Month” there is an erasible date pad you can use to accurately set DOOM DAY. Your survival stocks will become fully appreciable for month-to-month peace of mind.
Place your bets for SC24: "A number of well regarded solar physicists are predicting the next solar cycle will be far weaker than the last one."
Most interesting: "The Russian Academy of Sciences announced a paper predicting a Dalton-minimum style cooling because of extreme weakness in the predicted strengths of Solar Cycles 24 and 25. It looks like Greenhouse Theory and the Solar Cycle Theory are about to get their sternest tests."
Hmmm, we might want to be pumping more, not less, CO2 out. (OTOH, we can point to the cold weather as having overshot the mark and blame the Greenies...)
[I don’t have time to read this now,just tell me........ are we going to burn to a crisp or freeze to death?]
Yes!
Do you feel this increase in magnetic activity will spur periods of volcanism/earthquakes here on earth?
“And it looks just like the shopping lists for Y2K”
Yea, except this one is pretty well documented by the Bible, Osaphe, Mayans, Sumerians and a whole bunch of other sources.....
If it warms us up a bit, the left will crow “global warming”, and totally hide the fact that it’s caused by the sun doing a dance.
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