Growth of Cycle 25

[Jay-B]

It looks like were going to get some new decent sized sunspots coming around the corner!!

 

[tniickck]

44 minutes ago, Jay-B said:

It looks like were going to get some new decent sized sunspots coming around the corner!!

 

it may be inactive or even plage, but hoping for the best of course

[3gMike]

1 hour ago, Jay-B said:

It looks like were going to get some new decent sized sunspots coming around the corner!!

 

There is a possibility of something appearing around Carrington longitude 180, but unless there is some development since last rotation I'm not too optimistic for huge activity. In two or three days we should start seeing spots around Carrington 150 which were looking a bit more active last time round (AR3536).

[Philalethes]

As it's currently going it looks like the SSN for July will be the first to end up lower than the previous one in this cycle, leaving June as at least a small local maximum (I can already hear Patrick jumping for joy). However, even with the same average as this month currently has for the next months we'd still beat that SSN again in a couple of months already, and with even a small increase we'd even beat it as soon as next month, so it remains to be seen just how much of a "peak" it really ends up being.

As a precedent for something similar we don't have to look further back than to just SC23, where you see the same thing happening during the rising phase well before the peak, with the SSN going from 122.5 in February of 1999 to 122.3 in March, before continuing to rise, and again in November of 1999 with 164.1 to 164.0 in December, before the actual first "true" local maximum (Gnevyshev peak) of 175.2 in April of 2000. You also see the same in e.g. SC20 with a drop from 135 in August of 1967 to 134.9 in September, and even a 3-month drop after another local peak in May of 1968, before rising again to the peak in November of the same year.

Just wanted to get that out there to preempt any potential declaration that a small drop in SSN necessarily must mean the first (or only) peak is here already; it could be a possibility, but it's definitely not uncommon at all for the SSN to drop a few points before continuing to rise without that representing one of the peaks (or the only) of the cycle as a whole.

[hamateur 1953]

Appreciate your declaration there.  Funny.  It is actually an even  wussier peak (Scientific term) when taking into account the obviously higher 10.7 peak a month later in July, one might also justifiably argue indeed.   Mike/Hagrid 

My above point is considering that it took all those spots above just to hit the monthly 10.7.  While July did more with less.  Haha. Anyway sunspot peaks are ALWAYS debated and have been for as long as I have been observing them.  And likely still will be during SC 26.   

Edited January 26 by hamateur 1953

[hamateur 1953]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:33 PM, 3gMike said:

There is a possibility of something appearing around Carrington longitude 180, but unless there is some development since last rotation I'm not too optimistic for huge activity. In two or three days we should start seeing spots around Carrington 150 which were looking a bit more active last time round (AR3536).

Absolutely looking very good on the limb as I type this @3gMike  And our monthly 10.7 should exceed 170 hopefully by a comfortable margin.  

[Drax Spacex]

Alternatives to the 13-month smoothed graph of sunspot number could yield graphs with different characteristics and a different date for solar maximum.  A method that would show at least temporal alignment of solar maximum to the highest monthly mean may be an useful measure of merit for an alternative algorithm.  Perhaps one based on a smaller window and using sorted quartiles (e.g 75%) instead of averages?  Of course any alternatives negate consistent comparison to previous cycles (unless previous cycles are recalculated and replotted for study and analysis, not for official purposes).

[3gMike]

2 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Absolutely looking very good on the limb as I type this @3gMike  And our monthly 10.7 should exceed 170 hopefully by a comfortable margin.  

Mmmm, I think it will be close to 170 but possibly a little bit lower. Mean for first 25 days of January is about 169. Flux for the next 6 days would need to be 180 or greater to give a monthly mean of 171

[hamateur 1953]

24 minutes ago, 3gMike said:

Mmmm, I think it will be close to 170 but possibly a little bit lower. Mean for first 25 days of January is about 169. Flux for the next 6 days would need to be 180 or greater to give a monthly mean of 171

I haven’t checked today, we have had a bit of a dropoff which is to be expected until those ARs get around - 88 or so.   However the sawtooth climb is still looking pretty good overall on solen.   Yup. @3gMike is correct. Gonna be close.  Currently 169.7 posted. 

Edited January 26 by hamateur 1953
Accuracy

[Philalethes]

1 hour ago, Drax Spacex said:

A method that would show at least temporal alignment of solar maximum to the highest monthly mean may be an useful measure of merit for an alternative algorithm.

This itself can also be problematic though, because monthly means can be all over the place; look e.g. at SC17 with that 275.6 spike in July of 1938, situated among a series of noticeably lower monthly means than those near the smoothed peak, or in the cycle before it, SC16, with the pretty ridiculous spike in December of 1929 being the highest of the cycle, although it's clearly long after the period of most activity as represented by the smoothed peak.

But the idea of striking more of a balance than the 13-month tapered smoothing does is definitely valid, and has been voiced previously too. Ideally you would perhaps want something that includes a wide range of months, but weights the ones near the center more, like e.g. an exponential smoothing function. Meeus suggested something like this, weighting the months by 11, 10, 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1 from the middle and outward (renormalizing by dividing by the sum total of the weights of course, 81 in this case). I'm sure there are lots of other ways to do it too, and over both longer and shorter time windows, yielding different information about various aspects of the cycles.

[Patrick P.A. Geryl]

15 uren geleden, Philalethes zei:

This itself can also be problematic though, because monthly means can be all over the place; look e.g. at SC17 with that 275.6 spike in July of 1938, situated among a series of noticeably lower monthly means than those near the smoothed peak, or in the cycle before it, SC16, with the pretty ridiculous spike in December of 1929 being the highest of the cycle, although it's clearly long after the period of most activity as represented by the smoothed peak.

But the idea of striking more of a balance than the 13-month tapered smoothing does is definitely valid, and has been voiced previously too. Ideally you would perhaps want something that includes a wide range of months, but weights the ones near the center more, like e.g. an exponential smoothing function. Meeus suggested something like this, weighting the months by 11, 10, 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1 from the middle and outward (renormalizing by dividing by the sum total of the weights of course, 81 in this case). I'm sure there are lots of other ways to do it too, and over both longer and shorter time windows, yielding different information about various aspects of the cycles.

When will you start talking about the degrowth? 😱🤣

[Philalethes]

What "degrowth" would that be? You mean the projected small drop (less than 1) in SSN that I addressed two posts up? As far as I'm concerned there's a small possibility that it might represent the first smaller peak of the cycle, and a much larger possibility that it doesn't represent either (or the only) peak. As pointed out, it's not uncommon for such small drops to occur well before the peak(s).

With regards to your prediction of an overall Solar maximum in June or July I suspect that when all is said and done the only degrowth we'll be seeing is your ego deflating from yet another failed cocksure prediction, but we shall see; maybe we're all just clueless.

Edited January 27 by Philalethes
miscalculation

[hamateur 1953]

Well said. @Philalethes  thank you.   The topic is The Growth of Cycle 25. Degrowth is a euphemism invented or adopted  by the WEF.  Most certainly as far off-topic as anything else I might submit.  Anyway, I was going to ask @3gMike what he might possibly see magnetically coming up next week, as always, I have an overall favorable outlook for this cycle, at least for the next year or so. 

Edited January 27 by hamateur 1953
Degrowth ??? Haha.

[3gMike]

4 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Well said. @Philalethes  thank you.   The topic is The Growth of Cycle 25. Degrowth is a euphemism invented or adopted  by the WEF.  Most certainly as far off-topic as anything else I might submit.  Anyway, I was going to ask @3gMike what he might possibly see magnetically coming up next week, as always, I have an overall favorable outlook for this cycle, at least for the next year or so. 

Unfortunately, the WSO photospheric maps have not been updated since 7th January but comparing that map with the latest JSOC farside images I am fairly confident that the small spot just showing on the limb, slightly north of the equator, is related to the small AR at 150 longitude on the map below, so with luck we will see the return of AR3536 tomorrow - although I note that it has dropped off the list of regions to return - I am hoping that the field associated with that region has shifted slightly during transition of the farside. JSOC farside images certainly show fields centred around C139. After that the next most hopeful region is in the southern hemisphere at C90 longitude.

 

[hamateur 1953]

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. The limb of hope as we have come to call it was looking pretty darn good in 131 angstroms earlier this morning when I looked at it, and I happily note that for the time being our overall flux is still at C levels @3gMike  I’m gonna feed the resident baby cougar and get me some coffee.  See y’all later. Mike/Hagrid. 

[hamateur 1953]

On 1/26/2024 at 3:45 AM, Philalethes said:

As it's currently going it looks like the SSN for July will be the first to end up lower than the previous one in this cycle, leaving June as at least a small local maximum (I can already hear Patrick jumping for joy). However, even with the same average as this month currently has for the next months we'd still beat that SSN again in a couple of months already, and with even a small increase we'd even beat it as soon as next month, so it remains to be seen just how much of a "peak" it really ends up being.

As a precedent for something similar we don't have to look further back than to just SC23, where you see the same thing happening during the rising phase well before the peak, with the SSN going from 122.5 in February of 1999 to 122.3 in March, before continuing to rise, and again in November of 1999 with 164.1 to 164.0 in December, before the actual first "true" local maximum (Gnevyshev peak) of 175.2 in April of 2000. You also see the same in e.g. SC20 with a drop from 135 in August of 1967 to 134.9 in September, and even a 3-month drop after another local peak in May of 1968, before rising again to the peak in November of the same year.

Just wanted to get that out there to preempt any potential declaration that a small drop in SSN necessarily must mean the first (or only) peak is here already; it could be a possibility, but it's definitely not uncommon at all for the SSN to drop a few points before continuing to rise without that representing one of the peaks (or the only) of the cycle as a whole.

Very insightful observations @Philalethes  A future assessment consisting of a series of months surrounding a peak of activity on both frequencies of 10.7 and 30cm might even represent overall solar activity better than our present methods do.  

Edited January 28 by hamateur 1953

[Philalethes]

35 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Very insightful observations @Philalethes  A future assessment consisting of a series of months surrounding a peak of activity on both frequencies of 10.7 and 30cm might even represent overall solar activity even better than our present methods do.  

It's definitely one of the best indicators for overall activity. However, as with the difference between background flux and the actual flux due to flaring it might not necessarily account fully for the more dynamic types of activity; this might be the reason for something like how SC21 and SC22 can each appear as the strongest cycle depending on whether you look at F10.7 or SSN, SC21 being stronger in terms of SSN and SC22 being stronger in terms of F10.7; interestingly, SC21 also shows a marked overall peak in SSN right after finishing the rising phase, while its F10.7 instead has a rising plateau with some ups and downs that doesn't peak until much later.

Here's the most recent 365-day smoothed F10.7 with all the other cycles available plotted in as well:

We see the small drop from the peak in June here too, of ~2 sfu at this time; but as can readily be seen, similar drops have happened in many of the other cycles before they continued to rise, whether at the first major (Gnevyshev) peak or just one of many smaller local maxima before. Even SC24 had such a small drop that can be seen between 33-36 months in, also of ~2 sfu, before continuing to rise to its first major peak, let alone the even larger drop between the two major peaks and the continued climb to the second one.

As I've no doubt made clear by now it would greatly surprise me if this ends up being the overall peak of the entire cycle in terms of either F10.7 or SSN. The only ways I could see it happen in terms of F10.7 would have to either be a barely falling plateau (like SC20, but sloping slowly downward instead) or a second lower peak like the shape seen for SC22; it's possible, Sol is full of surprises after all, but I doubt it based on the expected placement of the overall peak based on various lines of evidence that we've talked about previously.

[hamateur 1953]

Something I find kinda humorous is that a few months ago I was reading how the second peak of Cycle 19 was distinguished by the chromosphere switching further into the range of green radiation.  At that point I knew I was sunk being somewhat colour-blind from birth.  Haha.  

[KW2P]

On 1/24/2024 at 3:25 AM, hamateur 1953 said:

Editing messed up. Anyway Phil do you know if 15 meters opened?  I also suspect it capable of E layer work and have either worked a really short F layer on 15 or E layer before. 73 Mike.   I imagine @KW2P actually sleeps sometimes too.  Haha. Incredible. I never honestly expected it to recur!!! Bizarre beyond my own belief.  

No, the action was mainly on six meters and a little on ten meters. I too have long believed that 15m can reflect off the E-layer but most experts say no. F-layer only. And I have to admit that I haven't seen any 15m propagation I could attribute to the E-layer. So I'm kind of letting go of that long-held belief. Hah.

[hamateur 1953]

On 1/27/2024 at 3:33 AM, Patrick P.A. Geryl said:

When will you start talking about the degrowth? 😱🤣

Degrowth:   A verb implying use of external force to a situation to secure a desired reduction in size or output. There easily could be several forces simultaneously at play to secure the desired result.   
 
I am hoping Patrick doesn’t have an arsenal of 10.7 reducing minions at his disposal.   Haha. 
 

 
 

[Philalethes]

1 hour ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Degrowth:   A verb implying use of external force to a situation to secure a desired reduction in size or output. There easily could be several forces simultaneously at play to secure the desired result.   
 
I am hoping Patrick doesn’t have an arsenal of 10.7 reducing minions at his disposal.   Haha.

[Jay-B]

Sunspot number today 137!! Gonna be a good start to February to move solar max away from June 2023!!

[hamateur 1953]

137? Sounds good!  I think flux was at or near this number earlier also. And it should head up towards 200 again very soon.  

1 hour ago, Jay-B said:

Sunspot number today 137!! Gonna be a good start to February to move solar max away from June 2023!!

 

[Sam Warfel]

Anyone know when will the SN for January get added to the Solar Cycle progression plots?  I'm curious to see how it stacks up

[Drax Spacex]

It looks like it has been updated on SILSO.

https://www.sidc.be/SILSO/datafiles#total

Monthly Mean for January:

2024 01 123.0

Latest 13-month SSN data point down 0.9:

2023 07 124.3