Sean Houlihane

Following on from this post, and since it will be a while before this month’s data appears, here is an update to my representation of the F10.7 solar flux. i have subtracted a presumed constant background level (67 flux units) and made a bit of an arbitrary partition between SC23 and SC24 during a period of overlap.

I postulate that in addition to the peaks in F10.7 associated with sunspots, there is also a more steady increase from features which are not directly observable. Sunspots are more strongly quantised, and even taking the monthly averages, there is a noisy signal which is difficult to interpret. I originally plotted this graph to demonstrate a couple of months afo that the sun was dragging itself out of the current minimum, and also to show how a delay in the onset of SC24 would affect the shape of the curve. The graph shows the equivalent SC23 ramp-up (adjusted to fit the decline of 22 with the decline of 23).

Note:

1. The signal is noisy, it is difficult to estimate trends
2. SC24 is making headway, but maybe half as fast as 23.
3. SC24 is 2 years delayed in getting to this amplitude compared with 23.

Click for full-sized image.

Note that I am not making any claims that this is having an effect on climate. Even another 5 years of data alone will probably be insufficient to give that claim any credence.