There is current talk about the arrival of solar maximum heralded by magnetic polarity change.
Two previous Talkshop articles mentioned precursors, the “Iron line” and more importantly results from the JAXA / Solar-B earth orbit satellite which is able to get a better look at the solar polar regions than is possible from earth. Magnetic domains can be deduced from radiation which provided an early look as the solar north pole flipped polarity, leading the south pole.
Today we see that the Wilcox solar observatory data is showing their data has crossed to opposite polarity.
Solar-B is an old satellite. It’s successors are being planned, with Solar-C launch due 2018. A “Solar science meeting” took place earlier this year at St Andrew’s university, fitting perhaps given the long affinity between Japan and Scotland.
The meeting documents, PDF, DOC and Powerpoint are online.
Both ESA and NASA representatives were invited but sent apologies.
Of particular interest to Talkshop regulars is the presentation given by Sami K. Solanki: How can Solar-C address the issue on the long-term solar variability and the Earth climate? (5.3M PDF from PPT)
This is dealing with TSI and I seem to be thinking much the same, there is devil in the detail involving very short wavelength radiation and with magnetics of critical importance. Solar A B C D are important.
Meeting results are here, part of “SOLAR-C Working Group, JAXA/SOLAR-C Preparatory Office, NAOJ”
http://solar-b.nao.ac.jp/SOLAR-C/Meeting/SC_StAnd_201208/
Post by Tim Channon
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Roger, the first link needs fixing. No matter, found a copy here off the second link and important stuff it is too. My thoughts are similar to yours on this question. Many thanks for posting this, just wish we had a commentary to go with it.
[ fixed, Tim]
I looked at the Solanki’s presentation, not much new there, a bit of cherry picking too, of supporting evidence, but ignoring contradictions. Solanki takes the Thames freezing as a proof, but it should be noted that the Central England temperatures at the part of the Maunder Min 1660-1670 were higher than those around 1960 at the time of the strongest solar activity recorded. It was similar for the Dalton min, the CET was higher than in the 1960’s except for less than a decade when Mayon and Tambora erupted.
Until both supporting and contradicting evidence are given equal weight no true and real progress is possible. The CO2 and AGW are good example what happens when the contradicting evidence is ignored and coincidental and only partial and limited correlation is promoted as the unquestionable proof.
On Thames freezing:
In the early 1800s at the high tides Thames was possibly twice or three times as wide as it is now. The north embankment was built by Victorian engineers, while the south embankment was started in 1950s only partially finished in 1980s. This made the Thames flow much faster at rising tides, since it is squeezed into a narrow channel, making difference more than 20 feet between the tides; impossible to freeze, few feet difference yes, but 20+ feet no. For many years I worked in a building erected on the old mud flat, continuously re-balanced by under-basement hydraulic jacks
location of which in 1800s at high tide would be in the middle of the river, now about 40-50m away from the river.
“invited but sent apologise.” apologies?
_________________
“… but no simpler.” Needs repeating. Often.
[fixed, Tim]
Many scientists have tried to predict Solar flares. I found the list below in one of the links above. This list indicates there is a severe problem at hand which is limited knowledge.
The Importance of prediction is high lighted in the Solar C project.
— There is no chance to predict sunspots or solar flares, short term or long term accurately, without finding out how basic rules for interplanetary energy exchange are working. —
Even with a cold sun there would be atmospheric disturbanies in its atmosphere similar to the ones found on the Jovian planets. Consider my statements here as a prediction.
— I further predict that my
prediction above will be fullfilled within five years with or without the Solar C project. —
Papers for Flare Prediction
Poisson statistics (Gallagher et al. 2002, Bloomfield1 et al 2012)
Bayesian statistics (Wheatland 2005)
wavelet predictors (Yu et al. 2010a)
Bayesian networks (Yu et al. 2010b)
vector machines (Li et al. 2007)
discriminant analysis (Barnes et al. 2007)
ordinal logistic regression (Song et al. 2009; Yuan et al. 2010)
neural networks (Colak & Qahwaji 2009; Yu et al. 2009; Ahmed et al. 2012)
predictor teams (Huang et al. 2010)
superposed epoch analysis (Mason & Hoeksema 2010)
empirical projections (Falconer et al. 2011).
Errors sorted thanks.
I agree there is presentational cherry picking. It does though demonstrate there is at least one solar chap who is not in bed with the majority.
I’m also cherry picking because I agree there is a dragon we don’t understand. We have a rough approximation that is all, more is going on. Away from here I have crossed swords on this, followed by considerable amusement on my part on what happened next.
Hi Tim
I think there is too much emphasis put on the sunspots and the derived TSI, since by some of the accounts TSI isn’t sufficient to do it. Coronal mass ejections CMEs may be a better bet. There is considerable disparity between SSN and Aa (Ap) of a certain strength.
http://www.bu.edu/cawses/images/image020.jpg
Only question is how the effect is translated into the ocean’s SST, I think it is via earth’s magnetic field.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-NAP.htm
correlations aren’t perfect, but again neither is the data, in addition only CMEs which hit the Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma starting a geomagnetic storm.
I agree with vukcevic, I too also think, there is too much emphasis put on TSI, rounding all solar activity into a TSI-factor is not realistic.
Apart from the huge changes in the high atmosphere resulting from UV and shorter, plus the plasma effects given hot gas is electrically conductive combining with magnetics, there is more.
UV-A and some UV-B get through to ground level but maybe more critically and why Tallbloke’s posit is serious, there is a UV window in the ocean. Things are pretty darn complex.
Aside: and the “colour” of water ice at longer than optical wavelengths? What you see is misleading.