Comments on: What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)

By: John

John — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:02:21 +0000

Hi All,

I visited this site when Mike D first posted and noticed something else……

If you look at the prediction graph in the press release you will notice that it’s not the latest official NASA prediction graph.
If you refer to - http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html
You will notice that the prediction was revised by NASA in May 2008 to a much lower prediction than the one used in the press release.

Why would NASA use the old bigger prediction data in the July press release ?

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:13:49 +0000

What I find odd is that the article talks about the normal behaviour for long periods of time, but the graph only shows one cycle. A nice way to hide any long term trends.

By: twawki

twawki — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:58:26 +0000

Solar cycle 23 started in May 1996. It isnt finished yet and typically finishes approx. 1 year after solar minimum. If solar minimum was this month (July 2008) then solar cycle 23 would finish August 2009 meaning it would be 13 years and 3 months long which is far from typical.

By: Bart

Bart — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:26:00 +0000

Mike D. said: “Of course, nothing in nature is Gaussian normal, Gaussian normal being a theoretical parametric formulaic equation.”

It’s a lot more than that. Due to the Central Limit Theorem, all processes which are a superposition of many independent subprocesses tend to a Gaussian distribution.

By: David Archibald

David Archibald — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:03:54 +0000

Let’s cut to the chase. There is a correlation between solar cycle length and the temperature in the mid-latitudes of the following cycle. See the paper I gave at the New York conference in March. The relationship is that each year of extra length lowers the temperature in the mid-latitudes of the following cycle by 0.7 degrees C. Relative to the extra short Solar Cycle 22 of 9.6 years, we already have 2.0 degrees of cooling in the bag for next decade.

Re the curves, see Jan Janssen’s blog “Solaemon” and his graphs of the progression of Solar Cycle 23/24 minimum.

By: Earle Williams

Earle Williams — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:42:15 +0000

By the way, the monthly unsmoothed data are available at the NOAA ftp site at

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY.Plt

Note that the NOAA web page linking to this file incorrectly has the file extension all upper case.

By: David Snyder

David Snyder — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:21:02 +0000

Lets try to continue this …
the more than 12 year cycles are Cycles: 4,5,6,9. All of these were followed by weak (less than 100 SSN) cycles. The current predictions for the next cycle is the is only the second time predictions have been based on more than numerology. And many will be shown wrong within the next six years. Sit back and enjoy the fallout.

Based on ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/SMOOTHED.PLT
Smoothed
Cycle SSN Peak Length Start Peak Date

1 86.5 11.25 1755.17 1761.42
2 115.8 9 1766.42 1769.67
3 158.5 9.25 1775.42 1778.33
4 141.2 13.66 1784.67 1788.08
5 48.6 12.59 1798.33 1804.67
6 48.7 12.41 1810.92 1816.33
7 71.5 10.59 1823.33 1829.83
8 146.9 9.58 1833.92 1837.17
9 132 12.42 1843.5 1848.08
10 95.2 11.25 1855.92 1860.42
11 140.3 11.75 1867.17 1870.58
12 74.6 11.25 1878.92 1883.92
13 87.9 11.91 1890.17 1894
14 64.2 11.5 1902.08 1906.08
15 105.4 10 1913.58 1917.58
16 78.1 10.09 1923.58 1928.25
17 119.2 10.41 1933.67 1937.25
18 151.8 10.17 1944.08 1947.33
19 200.9 10.5 1954.25 1958.08
20 110.6 11.67 1964.75 1968.83
21 164.5 9.75 1976.42 1979.92
22 158.5 10.16 1986.17 1989.5
23 120.8 11.67* 1996.33 2000.25
24 2008
* length of cycle 23 is a minimum since 24 has not yet started. But I’m almost willing to wager it will be longer than 12 yrs.

By: David Snyder

David Snyder — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:03:14 +0000

While the argument based on a single cycle is weak, I am intrigued by the statement “The likely curves of the 23 rundown and the 24 ramp up intersect in July 2009″. Also, the more than 12 year cycles are Cycles: 4,5,6,9. All of these were followed by weak (

By: Luis Dias

Luis Dias — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:42:58 +0000

Mr. David, not trying to be an ass, but isn’t that prediction only based on one type of Dalton minimum? I mean, just because 4 was long and it was followed by DM, it doesn’t compute directly that if 23 is long, then another minimum follows it. I mean, we have only one recorded historical example of that, so the statistical inference is beyond ridiculous.

So how do you base your certainty of DM repeat, more than this (yet to see) one single coincidence between long 4 and long 23, and how do you solve the everlasting dilemma of correlation being different from causation?

By: David Archibald

David Archibald — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:56:04 +0000

I started the current solar mania with a paper I published in Energy and Environment in 2006. At the time, I was looking at the range of Solar Cycle 24 amplitude predictions, which ranged from about 40 to Dikpati’s 170. The low end predictions tended to be wavelet derived. Dikpati left it very late in Solar Cycle 23 to make her prediction. I think that a low figure would not have been politically acceptable in NASA. Dikpati ranks above Hathaway and so he couldn’t be seen to be departing too much from her number.

My reasoning at the time was that if 24 was going to be as weak as some were saying, then 23 was going to be very long, just as 4 was 13.6 years prior to the Dalton Minimum. The first sign that we would be having solar-driven cooling would be a long finish to 23. Now we are in the minimum and the confidence with which the month of minimum can be predicted is increasing by the day. The likely curves of the 23 rundown and the 24 ramp up intersect in July 2009, making 23 at least 13 years long. Yep, we are going to have a repeat of the Dalton Minimum.