The State of our Sun - 2008 edition
Anthony Watts posts the
2008 year end review of Solar Activity:
State of the Sun for year end 2008: all’s quiet on the solar front - too quiet
The NOAA Space Weather Prediction center updated their plots of solar indices earlier today, on January 3rd. With the exception of a slight increase in the 107 centimeter radio flux, there appears to be even less signs of solar activity. Sunspots are still not following either of the two predictive curves, and it appears that the solar dynamo continues to slumber, perhaps even winding down further. Of particular note, the last graph below (click the read more link to see it) showing the Average Planetary Index (Ap) is troubling. I thought there would be an uptick by now, due to expectations of some sign of cycle 24 starting up, but instead it continues to drop.
There is a lively discussion in the comments section of this post (140 at this time) -- well worth reading.
Posted by DaveH at January 4, 2009 6:25 PM
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