Are the spots more equatorial than they should be?

[bradk]

Is it just viewer bias or are the spots more equatorial than they should be at this point in the cycle? A good discussion was on Dr. Svalgaard's string last week on whether other data may indicate we are really later in the cycle than we are, does this also indicate that? We still could get a peak for this thing in the originally predicted 2011 or 2012 instead of the now predicted later 2013.

It could also just be viewer bias, not sure what stat test I would even run or where to pull data...

solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif

[bradk]

I am not always a huge fan of alot of Wattsupwiththat, but this animated GIF of the NASA/Hathaway predictions is highly instructive of how the predictions of this cycle have moved. Note not only the lower peaks, but also how they extended the cycle. Is it possible we are so far out of the norm that only one of these moves, lowering the peak, was correct but not lengthening the cycle?

wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ssn_predict_nasa_1024.gif

[bradk]

I voted for 2012, just because I do not have the faith in my convictions to really call for a 2011 peak...

[af4ex]

Feb 4, 2011 5:18:05 GMT bradk said:

I am not always a huge fan of alot of Wattsupwiththat, but this animated GIF of the NASA/Hathaway predictions is highly instructive of how the predictions of this cycle have moved. Note not only the lower peaks, but also how they extended the cycle. Is it possible we are so far out of the norm that only one of these moves, lowering the peak, was correct but not lengthening the cycle?

wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ssn_predict_nasa_1024.gif

It's a lot like predicting where a hurricane will hit land. There are numerous models for predicting the path, but they're all less accurate when the hurricane is still in the middle of the ocean. It gets easier as the storm progresses.

Same applies to solar cycle prediction. There are several models to choose from:
solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
(I see that this article was updated yesterday)

The best approach for predicting hurricanes (and solar cycles) seems to be taking the average of several models.

[bradk]

Thanks John.

I have actually read those articles, and as you say, prediction is easy once the storm hits land. I am a bit surprised our modeling has not progressed a bit farther beyond what seem glorified correlations and guesses, but here we are. SDO TIM, SIM and the new data swhould help going forward, but for this cycle we will have to guess based on...something. We know the polar field shift happens, on average, at a certain point in the cycle. We also know spots move equatorally during the cycle. Both seem to give hints at possible earlier peak than currently predicted, but neither are good enough to make a call currently that is statistically significant - for that we seem to have to wait for the storm to hit land.

[af4ex]

bradk
> I am a bit surprised our modeling has not progressed a bit
> farther beyond what seem glorified correlations and guesses ...

Hmm, I wonder if Dr. S. and other solar scientists would agree with that characterization?
:-]

[janjanssens]

The latitude of the SC24-sunspots seems to be fine.

See users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24web/SC24.html#Latitude

[bradk]

Well, I do not think it is their fault. As often happens in science our great scientific minds are limited by the data they can collect. The supercollider's are the most extreme case in point, but in solar science our obsession with manned space flight and life on other planets has greatly reduced the number of satellites and experiments we do with our most important neighbor, the sun. We have a atmosphere in the way after all. SORCE findings coming out now are, well, a bit surprising to everyone and it is a basic SIM experiments we could have done a long time ago:

www.spacedaily.com/reports/SORCE_Solar_Spectral_Surprise_999.html

SDO is a phenomenal machine and we likely could not have done that well in the past, but the dependance on the wonderful old bird that SOHO (launched in 1995, with lots of very inventive fixes to keep it going) for as long as we did is an embarrassment.

Scientists need data. The flurry of very good papers using SDO should tell us something:

sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/publications.php

I am not a solar scientist, nor do I play one on TV, that said I was a cutting edge scientist in another field and saw first hand how the human genome project changed basic paradigms about our understanding and broke many old, standing scientific "truths" about the genome when it was barely begun. It is about the data. Suffice it to say I am not a big manned space flight guy, and would prefer we spent alot more getting alot more instruments out there.

Edward Maunder and Eddy were certainly not "dumber" than anyone out there today, we just have different data and different scientific shoulders and paradigms to build on.

[bradk]

Dr. Svalgaard-

You study polar fields at Stanford, what would it cost to get the perfect instrument into space to study those polar magnetic fields? Could such an instrument be designed?

[lsvalgaard]

Feb 4, 2011 15:11:52 GMT bradk said:

Dr. Svalgaard-

You study polar fields at Stanford, what would it cost to get the perfect instrument into space to study those polar magnetic fields? Could such an instrument be designed?

SDO is the best we have now. But to study the polar fields we need satellites that can SEE the poles. This is hard as you cannot just hover over the pole. Ulysses went over the poles, but moving too fast for long-term data and cost a billion dollars.
A cheaper mission would be solar polar orbiter: sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=36025
www.esa.int/esaSC/120384_index_0_m.html
sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=45

[bradk]

A billion sounds like alot of money, until you realize each shuttle launch costs a $1.4 BEFORE you add anything to the bay (if you count the entire program) or the incremental cost of $450 million...the space station costs up to 160 billion...depending on how you add it up...

Great science like SDO, SOHO, SORCE, the polar orbiters are all comparatively cheap and more scietifically meaningful, at least to me.

Looking forward to 2017 Leif, let us know if we can sign some petition for retiring man spaced flight for these missions...

Can you imagine how much science we can do instead of a manned station on the moon or a trip to Mars?

[lsvalgaard]

Feb 4, 2011 17:13:43 GMT bradk said:

A billion sounds like alot of money, until you realize each shuttle launch costs a $1.4 BEFORE you add anything to the bay (if you count the entire program) or the incremental cost of $450 million...the space station costs up to 160 billion...depending on how you add it up...

Great science like SDO, SOHO, SORCE, the polar orbiters are all comparatively cheap and more scietifically meaningful, at least to me.

Looking forward to 2017 Leif, let us know if we can sign some petition for retiring man spaced flight for these missions...

Can you imagine how much science we can do instead of a manned station on the moon or a trip to Mars?

For one spacecraft launch we can run all ground-based solar observatories for a century...

And for the cost of the Iraq war, we can launch a thousand Ulysses space missions.

[vonbek777]

"And for the cost of the Iraq war, we can launch a thousand Ulysses space missions."

Almost as if we need to change our perspectives on earth in order to change our perspective on the sun...

Regardless, a nice observation.

[bradk]

What could you do with a trillion dollars Dr. Svalgaard? The U.S. spend $1T each year on defense, more than all other countries on the planet COMBINED and that goes to something like $1.4T if you add all the interest on the debt paid because of defense created debt. Astounding and sad.

[lsvalgaard]

Feb 4, 2011 20:16:47 GMT bradk said:

What could you do with a trillion dollars Dr. Svalgaard? The U.S. spend $1T each year on defense, more than all other countries on the planet COMBINED and that goes to something like $1.4T if you add all the interest on the debt paid because of defense created debt. Astounding and sad.

I have in my hand a $100T banknote from Zimbabwe. Buys me a cup of coffee
I cannot fathom what I could do with $1T in real money. It would be unwise to try to fund all kinds of projects, because they would be run by people and too much easy money corrupts. So, I don't know.