Posts Tagged ‘cycle 24’
Will Cycle 24 Break Record Sunspot Count?
January 6th, 2013 | 
Author:  |
| Count of 208 was recorded 9 November 2011 |
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| Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Image |
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| North American Polar Paths To Europe And Japan |
Good afternoon from the Shell Beach shack after a winter’s morning rain shower leaving behind a partly cloudy sky with a temperature nearing 55 degrees plus or minus a few degrees.
Right now, I’m listening on 15m while machines speak to machines in the mechanical language of RTTY under the control of RadioSport operators, who undoubtedly are smiling ear to ear. The pain of the chair seems less painful when Cycle 24 maybe approaching a record count?
I never paid attention to auroral data and, with critical polar paths playing a fundamental role in the success of RadioSport scores across the globe, I finally get it.
NOAA Explains
Auroral data is as important as the solar flux indice, sunspot count, and both indexes. Each measure gives a reasonable guess at what I can expect on a given RadioSport weekend as NOAA explained it this way, “Energetic auroral particles (primarily electrons) not only produce the visible aurora but also greatly influence the properties of the ionosphere and are connected with strong electrical currents (as much as several million amperes) that flow in the ionosphere and connect along the geomagnetic field to a dynamo process at high altitude in the magnetosphere.“
NOAA further stated, “Thus, this same display provides a similar “best-guess” estimate of the geographic locations that may be subject to geomagnetic fluctuations that result from electrical currents flowing in the ionosphere, or the radio propagation paths that maybe degraded because of increased absorption of the radio signal by the disturbed ionosphere.“
In Sum
The potential for a storm increases as the number of sunspots increase and the possibility of a record count is approaching. Although, I’m a little perplexed because I’m not hearing much CW activity given current conditions? Those RTTY operators get all the luck!
73 from my Shell Beach shack.
Our little sliver of time
All the news sources–I saw it on Yahoo!, of all places–are churning out stories today about the current state of the surface of the sun. Three different “experts” have issued dire predictions about the sleepy sun and what it means for mankind…and not just us hams, who enjoy bouncing signals off an ionized atmosphere.
You know as well as I do that simply saying this cycle is slow to develop is not going to attract much reader interest. But if you say there is the possibility that the dormancy of Ole Sol portends historic implications, that it could reverse the effects of that evil, man-made global warming (or make it even more dire), that there could be unknown but potentially catastrophic weather events as a result…heck, even that we are on the verge of another Maunder Minimum, when the sun went to sleep for 300 years and we entered a “mini-Ice Age!”…then you will get some attention. Attention to your columns, your websites, your blogs, your books, your speeches.
I know it is human nature to see things from a very narrow perspective. Understanding things like climate change that usually take eons to be obvious and drawing conclusions about variations in sunspot minima and maxima that only occur in eleven-year cycles are difficult for us mortals to do. Geologic time and cosmologic time and distance are impossible for us to comprehend in our simple little seven- or eight-decade life spans. That’s why all the junk about rapid climate change (which I consider normal weather variation and based on decidedly short-term data) has found so many who are willing to swallow it, hook, line and sinker.
I admit I know little about sunspots or solar weather, beyond the fact that more spots equal better propagation on the high-frequency radio bands and pretty displays of the Northern Lights. And I appreciate data and scientific observation. But seems to me that it is far too early to say the sun is going to be dozing for the next three centuries simply because cycle 24 is a tad bit slow to get moving. After all, many of these same “experts” were touting what an active cycle this was going to be…and they were doing it only a year or so ago.
Reminds me of the high-tech “weather rock” my wife has in her flower garden. “If this rock is wet, it is raining. If it is dry, it is sunny. If it is white, it is snowing.”
I’m still hoping for an active solar cycle. I have somehow managed to be inactive in my amateur radio activities during each of the past two cycle maxima, and I had high hopes for that “arm-chair” ragchew with the Far East on 10 meters in the middle of the day. But if it doesn’t measure up, so be it. I talked to plenty of guys all over the world at the yawning chasm between the peaks, after all.
But most of all, I’d like to see everyone calm down a bit and not be so myopic. We see only a tiny slice of time in our own existence. Even so-called scientific observations are looking at a pitifully narrow slab of time and only a tiny bit of reliable data.
Put it into perspective before you panic and sell all your ham gear. Or before you stop gazing northward for a glimpse of the aurora borealis.
By the way, I checked. There is nothing we can do about the state of the sun’s surface anyway, so why worry?
Don N4KC
www.n4kc.com
www.donkeith.com
