bradk
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Post by bradk on Feb 4, 2011 11:46:37 GMT
So you guys are expecting quite a rampup to much higher sunspot numbers?
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 4, 2011 12:51:34 GMT
So you guys are expecting quite a rampup to much higher sunspot numbers? No, quite the opposite. |
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bradk
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Post by bradk on Feb 4, 2011 15:13:32 GMT
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?
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bradk
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 199
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Post by bradk on Feb 4, 2011 15:14:59 GMT
So you guys are expecting quite a rampup to much higher sunspot numbers? No, quite the opposite. That's what I thought, but 108 years ago we had what would be a relatively large cycle compared to this one, so my small brain is confused by the cognitive dissonnace that causes... |
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 4, 2011 16:00:44 GMT
That's what I thought, but 108 years ago we had what would be a relatively large cycle compared to this one, so my small brain is confused by the cognitive dissonnace that causes... cycle 14 was small.  |
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bradk
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Posts: 199
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Post by bradk on Feb 4, 2011 17:17:21 GMT
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 4, 2011 18:07:13 GMT
That graph is too dependent on where you place the minimum. Perhaps this is better:  . |
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Post by af4ex on Feb 4, 2011 18:26:08 GMT
bradk> ...and we have about the half the activity of cycle 14 currently Also remember that, if SC14 is truly the prototype for SC24, then we can expect huge and sudden swings ('spikes') in amplitude. So we might be where SC14 was in Aug 1903, in the trough of a spike. Three months later the spike peaked with an SN almost 3 times higher than Aug. So far, I think, SC24 behavior is consistent with this historical SC14 behavior. Attachments:
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bradk
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Posts: 199
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Post by bradk on Feb 4, 2011 20:14:35 GMT
Great points, and I am sure half the spots are not at the level to be statistically significant in any case.
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 4, 2011 22:29:08 GMT
Great points, and I am sure half the spots are not at the level to be statistically significant in any case. a count has no statistical significance. If I count 5 people on the other side of the street, 5 people it is. No error bar or confidence interval.... |
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Post by af4ex on Feb 5, 2011 14:08:57 GMT
@leif > a count has no statistical significance. If I count 5 people on > the other side of the street, 5 people it is. No error bar or > confidence interval.... But a spot has to be detected before it can be counted, therefore is subject to the usual errors of Signal Detection Theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detection_theoryEven after detection, there will be counting errors. (That's why they invented double-entry accounting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system ) Isn't that why we have a bunch of different groups counting sunspots? I'll bet their counts are not all the same. Hopefully any random discrepancies will be averaged out. :-| |
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bradk
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 199
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Post by bradk on Feb 5, 2011 14:14:26 GMT
Thanks John and Leif-
I was not referring to error in the count in any case, I was referencing whether at this point in the cycle a two fold difference in spots could pass any basic stats as a true difference (e.g. at a 95% confidence) - and I doubt it would even if the we knew the exact start of the two cycles.
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 5, 2011 14:27:19 GMT
@leif > a count has no statistical significance. If I count 5 people on > the other side of the street, 5 people it is. No error bar or > confidence interval.... But a spot has to be detected before it can be counted, therefore is subject to the usual errors of Signal Detection Theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detection_theoryEven after detection, there will be counting errors. (That's why they invented double-entry accounting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system ) Isn't that why we have a bunch of different groups counting sunspots? I'll bet their counts are not all the same. Hopefully any random discrepancies will be averaged out. :-| The main problem is that the so-called 'seeing' varies with location and time and the seeing is the real limiting factor, so you get the variance mostly from that. Not from accounting errors. The original Wolf number was based on counting only spots that were big enough that they would not be influenced by variable seeing. Wolf's successor, Wolfer, changed the counting method to count ALL spots no matter how small that are visible. To put the new counts on the original Wolf scale, it is multiplied by 0.6 [except that the NOAA count is not so modified]. |
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Post by af4ex on Feb 5, 2011 14:27:19 GMT
Thanks John and Leif- I was not referring to error in the count in any case, I was referencing whether at this point in the cycle a two fold difference in spots could pass any basic stats as a true difference (e.g. at a 95% confidence) - and I doubt it would even if the we knew the exact start of the two cycles. The _smoothed_ SC14 distribution looks approximately normally distributed. But the raw data is so spikey that the normal statistical inferencing would be meaningless. Looks more like a harmonic analysis problem. |
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Post by lsvalgaard on Feb 5, 2011 14:29:52 GMT
Thanks John and Leif- I was not referring to error in the count in any case, I was referencing whether at this point in the cycle a two fold difference in spots could pass any basic stats as a true difference (e.g. at a 95% confidence) - and I doubt it would even if the we knew the exact start of the two cycles. It is too early to tell. On the other hand, there is good evidence that sunspots are harder to see [Livingston] and are thus undercounted right now. making comparison even more dubious. |
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