Were We There Yet ? Solar Minimum

[vk3py]

Aaah...the Eyes of Heisenberg!! (now who wrote that??).....

Umm......I'm a little uncertain.

My point was that the solar cycle is a little like our weather. We know that in VK (or more precisely, the southern hemisphere) the hottest month is February. But what will be the precise date of the highest temperature, and what will that temperature be? There is no mathematical process for determining this, as far as I know, yet the weather follows a distinct cycle, ducks notwithstanding. How about the sun? What's THE formula for the next solar cycle peak? It has to give the correct answer in advance, not in retrospect. Anything less is speculation.

Chas
VK3PY

[VK6OX]

Aaah...the Eyes of Heisenberg!! (now who wrote that??).....

Umm......I'm a little uncertain.

Chas
VK3PY

Hint....he wrote an SF saga about a planet called Arrakis!

Cheers
Andy

[vk3py]

Ahhhh.....well, my comment related more to Werner Heisenberg than Frank Herbert, albeit somewhat obliquely, it seems.

Never mind. We're getting a little off topic.

Chas
VK3PY

[VK4QB]

Hi all,
Chas, 3 PY,
Looking at the solar cycle, we, i.e.. the earths scientists, have been only observing the sun for about 300 years, or, not very many cycles really( about 300 cycles)., Whereas the changes in our weather occurs daily, and we have a daily observation of the changes and that equates to about 365 days each year for how many years?? possibly 500 years or even more.! Then it stands to reason that we could get to know the sun's moods if we apply the same logic to understanding the sun then I think we will be in the same knowledge area of the sun as we have of the earths weather, in about 182,500 years , give or take a year or 2. I apologize for not being more accurate than this as is a bit hard to conjure up an exact figure this far into the future. I'm not, however, going to let the small inaccuracies worry me though .
Posted in the interests of our interesting future knowledge
Brian 4QB

[VK4EKA]

Three hundred years with daily sunspot records is more measurements than we have for weather in Australia.
Why would I worry? It is just that here in Toowoomba the hottest month is January, and having been working up in the Northern Territory I note that in Darwin the hottest month is November.
We tend to view all these things from our own local perspective.
As amateurs we tend to want big sunspot cycle peaks, but the possible massive X-ray flares and geomagnetic disturbance both can have disastrous consequences for people (and even life on Earth).
This wanting to predict the sun's progress comes form many directions.
Yes, you are right we have only been measuring much more data from the sun for a short period. Things like the solar wind and the suns magnetic field have only been mesasured directly for 40 to 50 years. The newer measuring the magnetic field strength in individual sunspots has only been going on for 17 years. The significant decrease in the magnetic field strength in individual sunspots over 17 years. Will sunspots stop altogether when the magnetic field strength in individual sunspotsgets down too low? Or this may just be part of a 22 year cycle.
See solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov for press releases about some of this "newer" data.
We need to keep measuring!
The next 30 to 40 years of this much increased data collection may make a big difference.
Or will we only progress with a leap of lateral thinking coming from outside the main solar research organisations.
I wonder would these reasearch organisations be prepared to put these datasets up on the Innocentive website with a prize for a much better prediction model?
Or even run an interactive site to try and suck in all the best ideas?