By David Archibald – Re-Blogged From WUWT
The heliospheric current sheet has flattened meaning that Solar Cycle 24 is over and we are now in Solar Cycle 25.
Figure 1: Heliospheric current sheet tilt angle 1976 -2020
Solar Cycle
A Perfect Storm of Cosmic Rays
Ten years ago, NASA reported a “perfect storm of cosmic rays.” During the year 2009, radiation peppering Earth from deep space reached a 50-year high, registering levels never before seen during the Space Age.
It’s about to happen again.
Ground-based neutron monitors and high-altitude cosmic ray balloons are registering a new increase in cosmic rays. The Oulu neutron monitor in Finland, which has been making measurements since 1964, reports levels in April 2019 only percentage points below the Space Age maximum of 2009:
Solar Slump Continues
Re-Blogged From WUWT
Solar experts predict the Sun’s activity in Solar Cycle 25 to be below average, similar to Solar Cycle 24
April 5, 2019 – Scientists charged with predicting the Sun’s activity for the next 11-year solar cycle say that it’s likely to be weak, much like the current one. The current solar cycle, Cycle 24, is declining and predicted to reach solar minimum – the period when the Sun is least active – late in 2019 or 2020.
Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel experts said Solar Cycle 25 may have a slow start, but is anticipated to peak with solar maximum occurring between 2023 and 2026, and a sunspot range of 95 to 130. This is well below the average number of sunspots, which typically ranges from 140 to 220 sunspots per solar cycle.
NOAA’s Space Weather Workshop
Amid the Dimmest Sun Since 1978 – a Month Without Sunspots
By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From WUWT
The sun today is cue-ball blank, a perfect unmarred sphere:
The sun has just passed an entire calendar month with no sunspots. The last time this happened, in August 2008, the sun was in the nadir of a century-class Solar Minimum. The current stretch of blank suns shows that Solar Minimum has returned, and it could be as deep as the last one.
The last time a full calendar month passed without a sunspot was August 2008. At the time, the sun was in the deepest Solar Minimum of the Space Age. Now a new Solar Minimum is in progress and it is shaping up to be similarly deep. So far this year, the sun has been blank 73% of the time–the same as 2008.
Solar Cycle 24 Going Down As Quietest In Almost 200 Years
By
Solar Cycle 24 has had the lowest solar activity since the Dalton Minimum around 1810.
Von Frank Bosse und Fritz Vahrenholt
(German text translated / edited by P Gosselin)
Our sun was also very sub-normally active in December last year. We are writing the 121st month since the beginning of cycle number 24, in December 2008, and since 2012 (when we started the blog here) we could only reformulate the opening sentence once: In September 2017 when the sun was 13% more active than the long-term (since 1755) average.
All other months were below average. With the sunspot number (SSN) of 3.1 for the monthly average for December and a total of 24 days without any spot (throughout the second half of the month the sun was spotless) we are in the middle of the cycle minimum.
Solar Cycle Update for November 2018
By David Archibald – Re-Blogged From WUWT
In reading the solar data, what we are after in the near term is the likely month of minimum for the Solar Cycle 24/25 minimum and likely amplitude of Solar Cycle 25. Of course that quest for truth gets easier as we approach the minimum, at least apparently. Solar Cycle 24 looks like being unusual in being short while being weak and Solar Cycle 25 looks like being a repeat of Solar Cycle 24 in terms of amplitude.
The concept of the Super Grand Solar Deepest Minimum is fashionable again for the moment. There is no sign of that in the data. That said, activity in Solar Cycle 24 was back-loaded and if the solar activity to atmospheric temperature connection is real, the planet’s temperature will be running warmer for a few more years as a consequence of that.
Weak Sun and El Nino Events May Create a Colder and Snowier Than Normal Winter Season in Much of the Eastern Half of the USA
By Meteorologist Paul Dorian – Re-Blogged From WUWT
The fast approaching solar minimum and its potential impact on the upcoming winter season
Overview
In the long term, the sun is the main driver of all weather and climate and multi-decadal trends in solar activity can have major impacts on oceanic and atmospheric temperatures. In addition, empirical observations have shown that the sun can have important ramifications on weather and climate on shorter time scales including those associated with the average solar cycle of around 11-years. For example, there is evidence that low solar activity during solar minimum years tend to be well-correlated with more frequent “high-latitude blocking” events compared to normal and this type of atmospheric phenomenon can play an important role in the winter season.
The sun today: a blank, spotless, ball. 58% of the days in 2018 have been without sunspots. Source: NASA SDO
Solar Update June 2017
By David Archibald – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com
Figure 1: F10.7 Flux 2014 – 2017
The F10.7 flux shows that over the last three and a half years the Sun has gone from solar maximum through a bounded decline to the current stage of the trail to minimum. Solar minimum is likely to be still three years away.
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #187
The Week That Was: July 11, 2015 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project
Science or Selective Ignorance? In an editorial published in Science magazine on July 3, Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief of the Science Journals, removed all doubt concerning the direction that this once prestigious journal is taking. In “The beyond-two-degree inferno”, she wrote: “The time for debate has ended. Action is urgently needed.” Then, she strongly supports the contrived effort of the European Union to keep “global warming” below 2°C above the preindustrial level – a number for which we have no rigorous measurement or logic. She advocates the political position of the Administration in forcing reductions in carbon dioxide emission (CO2) by stating “The United States has pledged reductions of 26 to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025…” Of course, there is no such pledge by the American people and its representatives in Congress. The Administration’s pledge is arbitrary and authoritarian. Ms. McNutt concludes with a description of the nine circles of Hell found in Dante’s Inferno.
The Sun Is Almost Completely Blank
By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com
Weakest Solar Cycle In More Than A Century
The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun’s X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. –Paul Dorian, Vencore Weather, 30 April 2015
US Issues 