Let me put it another way which perhaps you can understand. Our universe is a very violent and dangerous place for such fragile corporeal beings such as we. And our understanding of the universe in which we live is that of a helpless infant.

Now Einstein, who despite his human flaws, was a very wise man. He said, and I quote; "You have two choices. You can either decide that you're living in a hostile universe or you can decide that you are living in a friendly universe. The choice is yours!" He also said about our universe and the human condition: "Of course it's hopeless! But it you take that position, then you already have one foot in the grave!"

Now, what I see as the underlying issue to this bitter discussion is the question are you afraid or not? It's as simply as that. We don't know what our sun...our star is going to do.....NONE OF US!!! So our fate is uncertain. So again I reiterate the question.....are you afraid or not? Because in the final analysis that's all that matters.


Perhaps an instantiation of what I'm talking about will help. As a field geologist I have to sometimes put myself in hazardous situations which could cost me my life. When I'm doing this am I afraid? No. Why? because the beauty of what I am witnessing of nature is more than worth my life. You doubt it? Well, I put my money where my mouth is. And the photo that I am about to show you wasn't even the most hazardous situation in my last field survey. It just happened to be the only shot I took that turned out well. But believe when I say that when I took this shot, my life was most definitely at risk.

http://ericfdiaz.webs.com/image4.jpg

What you're looking at is an extremely weathered limestone overhang with a 40 foot drop down to a concrete division from the asphalt road. Was I in danger? Absolutely! Was I afraid? No! Did I know what I was doing? You betcha! Could the average layperson take a shot like this without falling to his or her death. Probably not.

So again I reiterate the question.....are you afraid or not? Because in the final analysis that's all that matters. Because if you are, then scientific investigation is not for you. It is better if you bury your head in the sand and live in your own private fantasy world. The universe contains wonders and horrors, which are not only more than you imagine, but more than you can possibly imagine. I think I'm quoting someone inadvertently, but I don't remember whom it is that I am quoting. This universe is not for the meek, I'm sorry to have to say.

Eric

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

As far as the sun goes, if it wants to stare me down, then I will stare it down back! LOL

Attached Images

100_0860.jpg (135.5 KB, 6 views)

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Who are you having this discussion with? I'm not aware of anyone in this thread (yet) expressing fear about what's going on.

BTW, have you ever read Sartres or other existentialists?

__________________
As above, so below

It isn't a logical fallacy to assume that a person with greater formal training is necessarily better informed. Its a fair assumption based on reasonable expectations.

But it IS a fallacy to claim that because a person is an expert in X therefore whatever that person says about X must be true.

An expert is someone to whom the probability of being wrong in an area of expertise is much smaller than other people's. But its not zero.

Experts can be wrong.

P.S.

Just for the record, I don't like equations. There is nothing more dead than an equation. If you can't articulate your ideas in plain English, that in itself indicates to me that you really don't know what you're talking about. The greatest scientific minds in all of history have been able to express their ideas in the idiomatic language in which they were fluent. Galileo not only wrote in Latin, the then official language of scholars, but also in Italian! I can speak and read and write many languages, including the language of mathematics. But if you express yourself in computations, your expression will fall on deaf ears with respect to me. I only give one warning and this is it! Debes laudare tuum bonum fortunum!

Sincerely,

Eric F. Diaz

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Do I need to explicate the fallacy? 1) appealing to authority is a logical fallacy simply because it has no relevance to any given argument and 2) in this particular instance how do you know that each person is telling the truth about his or her credentials? I can't verify the veracity of one of the individual's claims in this discussion. I challenge you to do what I have not been able to do!

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Thanks to Bauters who helped in establishing heliochromology, we at least now know its true color.

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

New sunspots continue to have less and less magnetic field strength. This is the magnetic field intensity of the last sunspot 1029.

As Livingston and Penn note, if the magnetic field strength of new sunspots drops to 1500 gauss, the sunspot rope that rises from the solar tachocline will be broken up in the solar convection zone.

This is a graph that shows how solar geomagnetic field disturbances have dropped.


http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...ndex_oct09.png


http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...mbral_data.png

EricFD, I think folks are curious about the Suns behaviour, I havent detected anyone being fearful in this thread. If there is apprehension of how solar changes may effect climate it is to be expressed in the AGW thread.

In anycase according to Solar Cycle 24 page there is a northern hemisphere plage of cycle 23 polarity today. I thought the old cycle sunspots were supposed to be equatorial?

__________________
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Thanks William, It seems things are continuing as forecast by Penn and Livingstone.

__________________
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Thank you, William. I appreciate the update.

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

The fear is tacit within the discussion at hand. To some it's obvious. To others it is non-existent.

Eric

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Eric,

You have 20 comments in this thread which have nothing to do with solar observations or science. Please start your own thread to discuss what ever is on your mind.

This thread is reserved for Cycle 24 observations, papers, and discussions related to cycle 24. If there is nothing to say this thread will appropriately move down.

There's no legend with that graph, can you provide?

__________________
The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

Hi Mantiss,

Lief Svalgaard’s graph shows sunspot “umbral intensity” -vs- the sunspot total magnetic field strength vs month when the sunspot was formed. (Umbral is the name for the center of the sunspot and is the darkest part of the sunspot. Intensity is the temperature difference of the center of the sunspot as compared to the solar photosphere outside the sunspot.)

This a link to Livingston and Penn’s second paper that discusses their finding that the magnetic field strength of each new sunspot formed on the sun is linearly decreasing as compared to previously produced sunspots.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf


http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...esire_fig3.png



This is a 2007 paper by Penn and MacDonald that discuss what are the implications of changes in sunspot magnetic field strength.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-4...0-e6afee23350b


From Wikipedia

There is some disagreement and discussion as to how solar cycle 24 will unfold. This review paper by Karen Harvey summarizes how normal solar cycles unfold and the normal patterns and normal pattern variation that has been found by observing past solar cycles. Most of the solar cycle predictions used historic pattern observations to try to predict how large cycle 24 would be.

Obviously something has changed in the sun so it is not clear what will happen next. As solar cycle 24 is anomalous there are no past solar cycles in which to compare. Lief Svalgaard has noted that cycle 24 is progressing in some solar parameters as compared to past solar cycles so cycle 24 could be a rump cycle followed by a Maunder or a Dalton minimum, rather than an abrupt cycle interruption.

I will keep an eye out for new papers or observations and will update this thread.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/1992ASPC-Harvey.pdf

This is an interesting link that provides a sunspot by sunspot summary of cycle 24.

http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/

I noticed that they did not label sunspot 1030 a cycle 23 spot even though its polorarity was reverse of cycle 24. Anyone have any ideas why the change in nomenclature and any ideas on why it was relatively high in lattitude for an old cycle sunspot?

__________________
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Hi flyjack1,

Sunspot 1030 is designated a cycle 24 sunspot because it appeared at a high latitude location even though it is reversed magnetic polarity as compared to the normal cycle 24 sunspots.

Sunspot 1030 is an exceptionally weak sunspot. The polarity of very weak sunspots can be either normal or reversed magnetic polarity with almost equal probability.

The reason for this observation can be explained as follows.

Assuming the magnetic rope which forms sunspots is produced at the tachocline (interface of the solar radiative zone and the solar convection zones), if the magnetic rope field strength is weak the rope is twisted and pulled apart as it moves through the convection zone, which would explain why weak sunspots can be either normal or reversed magnetic polarity.

Thanks again William, I suppose this makes sense. I had it in my mind that reverse polarity spots became more or less non-existent once the the new cycle was in process in earnest.

__________________
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

<HUMOR=ON> Perhaps it's a cycle 25 sunspot coming early <HUMOR=OFF>

__________________
The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

Or at least its acting very fickle at a minimum! If you will pardon the Pun.

__________________
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

I am sorry, but I have to disagree here. The tachocline is the boundary between the radiative zone and the convection zone deep inside the sun. Now, onlz in the convective region can magnetic field be generated and amplified by the so called α and ω dynamo processes can happen.

It is not that immedately at this boundary magnetic field is generated and "has to travel through the ominous convective zone" and survive or not. In any plasma there will be small loops of magnetic field generarated through random processes. Only when there is some mechanism that can amplify these seed fields (a dynamo) can there be significant magnetic field in the end. The best and most comprehensive description of the α-ω dynamo in my view has been written by my good friend and colleague Karl-Heinz Glassmeier (in the introduction part, forget about the feedback mechanism). The passage of the seed fields through the convection zone will cause the magnetic field to be amplified.

So, the idea of magnetic field ropes being created at the tachocline and "fighting their way through the convection zone" is highly incorrect.

__________________

Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Observational evidence and theoretical analyzes supports the assertion that the sunspot magnetic ropes are created in the tachocline and that they arrive on the surface of the sun fully formed.

There is not sufficient time as the magnetic rope rises up through the convection zone nor is there a smooth pattern of flow in the convection zone to amplify the magnetic ropes to form the sunspots. The sunspot rope is not amplified as it move up through the convection zone.

If you read Livingston and Penn's paper they note if the magnetic field strength of individual sunspots drops below 1500 gauss the sunspots will not survive the trip through the convection zone. Now the last cycle's sunspots are the seeds for the next cycles sunspots.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf

This explains why there is Maunder minimum. When the tachocline is interrupted the magnetic ropes formed at the tachocline no longer have sufficient magnetic field strength to survive the trip through the convection zone. Now the question is how does the cycle restart without the past sunspot seed.

As I said there is a long list of cyclic geological phenomena discussed in papers that show the solar cycle restarts with a series of massive CME. I will start a new thread in science later.


"Journey from the Center of the Sun", Jack Zirker pages 244/245




http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/9/8/302

Well, duh, of course they arrive at the surface of the sun fully formed.

The start of the creation of the magnetic field starts as soon as it is possible to be generated and amplified. It is a rediculous notion to claim that magnetic ropes are created at the tachocline, the field has not even had time to get amplified from its seedling.

How do you know that there is not enough time? You don't even understand how magnetic fields are formed in the convective layer of the sun. You seem to think that suddenly on the boundary of the radiative and convective layer humongous magnetic ropes jump into existence and then get send up by the convection and/or buoyancy. You really need to learn the basics of dynamo action in the sun.

So what? What does that have to do with your misunderstanding of how the magnetic field in the sun is created?

In the paper they say:
which means if no field stronger than 1500 nT breaks through the surface of the sun, there will be no sunspot. It does not mean that fields of 1500 nT (magically) appearing at the tachocline cannot get whole through the convection zone. Nothing of the kind is said in the EOS paper.

No, it does not, however do you come to that conclusion?
"the tachocline is interrupted" What kind of nonsense is that, this is a boundary between the inner radiative zone of the sun and the outer convective zone of the sun. How can that be interrupted? By stopping convection? By making the radiative zone convective, or what? And again, magnetic ropes are not created at the tachocline. And there is most definitely no "sunspot seed". There is a seed magnetic field consisting of tiny loops, that get amplified by the dynamo action in the convective zone of the sun.

Don't bother starting a new thread if your understanding of CMEs is as good as your understanding of how magnetic fields are created in the sun. E.g. your previous claim that "CMEs are not understood where they come from" (or something of the kind) so your clear lack of understanding.

So this nonsense about a magnetic rope etc. is not from Livingstong and Penn, but from Zirker, whom I don't know. But apparently, he has not kept up with modern dynamo theory, when he calls as evidence a quote from Parker from 1975. Things have developed quite a bit in the last 35 years. 1975 was like the cradle days of dynamo theory. And Zirker's book, although republished as a paperback in 2004, the book originates from 1980.


Yes and ....
Naturally, there will be instabilities on this boundary as there is at least a velocity shear, the qualities of both plasmas are different etc. etc.

I know this is part of your "CSI method of doing research", but you have to understand what you are reading and have to be able to judge whether something is old or left behind for something more modern or better.

__________________

Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Again, how are William's assertions and conclusions not ATM?

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

Jack Zirkers' book was published in 2002. The following is an excerpt from a Hinode paper published in 2009.

Please note I am stating what Zirker stated. I appropriately included an exact quote of Zirker's words.

If new data and papers disproved Zirker's statement, I accept that. I am not presenting my theory.

The Hinode paper seems to state what Zirker stated, that the dynamo mechanism cannot create the necessary magnetic field strength of a sunspot.

Hinode on the page that announced their finding of the source of the solar wind, included a note that the mechanism that forms the sunspots is not understood.


http://www.cospa.ntu.edu.tw/aappsbul...3/11Hinode.pdf

Christopher,
What I am saying is backed up by papers and observation.

There is observational evidence and papers that indicate the sun may be moving towards a minimum.

Does anyone now why the sun could be moving towards a minimum?

I do not know why!!!

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2..._longrange.htm

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...p_sunspots.htm


http://97.74.127.8/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/mag1.png



http://www.ann-geophys.net/20/115/20...0-115-2002.pdf

http://www.ann-geophys.net/20/115/20...0-115-2002.pdf

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD....34.0603S

But your conclusions are based on what a mainstream scientist has been telling you are misunderstandings and gross inaccuracies on how the sun works. Fine, we may be headed for a "Maunder" type minimum. That's fine. And if that's all you are saying, based on some scientests' specualations and research, okay. But it appears your understanding of the Sun is flawed, at least according to mainstream science.

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

Solar cycle #24

The papers I am quoting are from mainstream scientists. Mainstream scientists are stating the sun could be heading towards a Maunder minimum.

I would suggest we keep watching for more solar observational data and papers.

Yes, amazon shows for Zirker's book a first publication in 1980, then another one in 2001, and one in 2002 and a paperback in 2008 (se here. Did he edit the book after more than 20 years or is the content the same as in 1980?

That is just the scientific equivalent of a commercial, that is not a peer reviewed paper.

And although they indeed claim that the equipartition value of the magnetic field is too small in the introduction:

(where we can comment that e.g. the fields of pulsars (not pulsers) is NOT created by a dynamo, instead the superfluidity and superconductivity of the matter in a neutron star, combined with other quantum mechanic processes are maintaining the very strong field, but that goes too far to discuss here).

But then a little later in the "paper" they write:

WHOAH!!! Wait! Let me copy that again: how this new dynamo process and its resultant horizontal fields are related to global dynamo process, which produces sunspots.

Here is some sunday afternoon reading all papers with "solar dynamo model" in the title.

And BTW I noted that you did not address ANY of my complaints.

__________________

Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)