Showing posts with label NOAA. Show all posts

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


Warmest Sea Surface Temperatures


What makes this so difficult is just the following. Ocean surface temperatures appear to be excellent proxies for global climate. So are other measures. Except that they seem to have a mind of their own and seem to mock any effort to reconcile them. Such ocean heat should support a strong hurricane season. Yet 98 did nothing of the kind that I recall.


Just when you suspect that there is some missing heat it shows up. The atmosphere moves a lot of heat around and picks it up from both the sun and back from the ocean. In fact the ocean is the earth’s heat sink and climate stabilizer.


Anyway, we are back to not knowing squat that is particularly certain.


The sea ice is continuing to erode and the northern land masses may not be as cold as they should be.


And now the ocean is warmer than it should be.


Yet we had a generally cool summer this year. It is as if we are getting selective applications of warmth that may add up to nothing consequential.


After dealing this for two years, the only surety apparent is that our modeling is unreliable at best and should all be outright ignored. In fact, no one should be allowed to draw any conclusions that are deemed predictive.


Does anyone think we are going to have a warm (cold) winter?


NOAA: Warmest Global Sea-Surface Temperatures for August and Summer

September 16, 2009


http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_globalstats.html

The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The preliminary analysis is based on records dating back to 1880.


NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record, behind 1998. For the June-August 2009 season, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record.


Global Highlights – Summer


The June-August worldwide ocean surface temperature was also the warmest on record at 62.5 degrees F, 1.04 degrees F above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees F.

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the June-August season was 61.2 degrees F, which is the third warmest on record and 1.06 degrees F above the 20th century average of 60.1 degrees F.


Global Highlights – August


The worldwide ocean surface temperature of 62.4 degrees F was the warmest on record for any August, and 1.03 degrees F above the 20th century average of 61.4 degrees F.

Separately, the global land surface temperature of 58.2 degrees F was 1.33 degrees F above the 20th century average of 56.9 degrees F, and ranked as the fourth warmest August on record.

Large portions of the world’s land mass observed warmer-than-average temperatures in August. The warmest departures occurred across Australia, Europe, parts of the Middle East, northwestern Africa, and southern South America. Both Australia and New Zealand had their warmest August since their records began.

The Southern Hemisphere average temperatures for land and ocean surface combined were the warmest on record for August.


Other Notable Developments


For the year to date, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature of 58.3 degrees F tied with 2003 for the fifth-warmest January-August period on record. This value is 0.99 degree F above the 20th century average.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice covered an average of 2.42 million square miles during August. This is 18.4 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent, and is generally consistent with a decline of August sea ice extent since 1979.

NSIDC data indicated Antarctic sea ice extent in August was 2.7 percent above the 1979-2000 average. This is consistent with the trend during recent decades of modest increases in August Antarctic sea ice extent.


Watch NOAA's
visualization of the world’s land and ocean surface temperature.

Watch NOAA's
visualization of the Arctic sea ice extent.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the oceans to surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


Nitrogen and the Ozone Layer


I find this particular conclusion rather odd and am rather curious how it is supported at all. There are two issues.

The first is that the bulk of atmospheric nitrous oxide is produced by lightning and a lot of that is at a high altitude making it easy enough to support injection into the stratosphere. The only high altitude nitrous oxide we produce would come from jet engines and it is hard to see how we could get reliable measurements to describe the effect globally.

The second is that it is a heavy enough molecule that combines with water vapor and becomes acid and is heading down to the earth as precipitation sooner than later. For this reason, it was left out of every one’s calculations when it came to treaty making. A more likely scenario, is that ammonia is oxidizing somehow as it rises to the troposphere and this factor may have been locally increased by human activity.

Beyond that, it again begs the question of why we need to be concerned. Here it is represented that it is affecting the ozone layer, but only in a way that is naturally occurring anyway and possibly going through major peaks every time a volcano blows up. Mother Nature is set up to process this particular gas. That was never true for the refrigerant that started accumulating up there.

The advent of the universal application of biochar in agriculture will lock up unused agricultural nitrogen as it is been deployed over the next few decades and this will bring all such types of concerns under proper control. Nitrogen will no longer escape into the hydraulic system and that which is there will be naturally consumed. Global agriculture will be able to operate with vastly less nitrogen been manufactured on a per acre basis with the biochar protocol.

If you are unfamiliar with biochar, search my blog. Otherwise, it is safe to assume that every acre of agricultural soil will by having a minimum of several tons of carbon in the form of biochar applied to the soil. The soil benefits are singular and the carbon naturally grabs free ions of nitrogen to hold until taken up by the root system.

Nitrous oxide is top destroyer of ozone layer: study

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Nitrous_oxide_is_top_destroyer_of_ozone_layer_study_999.html


by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Aug 31, 2009

Nitrous oxide emissions caused by human activity have become the largest contributor to ozone depletion and are likely to remain so for the rest of the 21st century, a US study has concluded.

The study by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency said efforts to reduce chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere over the past two decades were "an environmental success story.

"But manmade nitrous oxide is now the elephant in the room among ozone-depleting substances," said A. R. Ravishankara, lead author of the study, which was published Friday in the journal Science.

While nitrous oxide's role in depleting the ozone layer has been known for decades, the study marks the first time that its impact has been measured using the same methods as CFCs and other ozone depleting substances.

Emissions and production of those substances are regulated under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.

But the treaty excludes nitrous oxides, which are emitted by agricultural fertilizers, livestock manure, sewage treatment, combustion and certain other industrial processes.

Since nitrous oxide is also a greenhouse gas, the scientists said reducing emissions from manmade sources would be good for the ozone layer and help temper climate change.

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


Current Sea Ice August 2009

When I last posted on the sea ice thirty days ago, I noted that it had taken a sudden dip making a repeat of 2007 possible. Well here we are and it is certainly going to be close.

It may not be as energetic as 2007 but there is less to work on so it is easier to get the same result. I have included the link to the map I like and it is just updated. The North East passage is wide open except at the usual chokepoint. The North West passage is choked with broken multi year ice busily melting and will not likely clear this year. I got that right also.

Once again folks are standing on a very few remaining feet of ice that is disappearing at the rate of six inches per year and stating that we have twenty or more years to wait. At least they are not claiming today that it will take ninety years.

The remaining question is the present state of the multi year ice in the main intact bulk of the sea ice. This zone is large, but all the peripheral ice looks to disappear pretty quickly. It now becomes important to discover what is meant by sixty percent and the like. If the core is still holding up, then it has a ways to go before it finally breaks up. We will still have wide open passages, but possible injection of some thick ice depending on winds.

The destruction of all thick ice will open the passages to icebreaker supported shipping most years.

There is now a lot that we do not know. It has been stated that the ice travels through the Arctic gyre. This may simply be not true. In that case, thick ice can linger in cold spots and avoid breakup. Fine modeling may show that a portion of the sea ice may be retained in a sub gyre that preferentially holds it for several years even if everything else gets melted.

The point today is that it is timely to ask these questions. A strong sub gyre could retain a significant pool of sea ice long after everything else has been cleared out. And I certainly do not count on anyone having mapped it very much.

Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

TUKTOYAKTUK, Northwest Territories — The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap.

From the barren Arctic shore of this village in Canada's far northwest, 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) north of Seattle, veteran observer Eddie Gruben has seen the summer ice retreating more each decade as the world has warmed. By this weekend the ice edge lay some 80 miles (128 kilometers) at sea.

"Forty years ago, it was 40 miles (64 kilometers) out," said Gruben, 89, patriarch of a local contracting business.

Global average temperatures rose 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degree Celsius) in the past century, but Arctic temperatures rose twice as much or even faster, almost certainly in good part because of manmade greenhouse gases, researchers say.

In late July the mercury soared to almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in this settlement of 900 Inuvialuit, the name for western Arctic Eskimos.

"The water was really warm," Gruben said. "The kids were swimming in the ocean."

As of Thursday, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported, the polar ice cap extended over 2.61 million square miles (6.75 million square kilometers) after having shrunk an average 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers) a day in July -- equivalent to one Indiana or three Belgiums daily.

The rate of melt was similar to that of July 2007, the year when the ice cap dwindled to a record low minimum extent of 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers) in September.

In its latest analysis, the Colorado-based NSIDC said Arctic atmospheric conditions this summer have been similar to those of the summer of 2007, including a high-pressure ridge that produced clear skies and strong melt in the Beaufort Sea, the arm of the Arctic Ocean off northern Alaska and northwestern Canada.

In July, "we saw acceleration in loss of ice," the U.S. center's Walt Meier told The Associated Press. In recent days the pace has slowed, making a record-breaking final minimum "less likely but still possible," he said.

Scientists say the makeup of the frozen polar sea has shifted significantly the past few years, as thick multiyear ice has given way as the Arctic's dominant form to thin ice that comes and goes with each winter and summer.

The past few years have "signaled a fundamental change in the character of the ice and the Arctic climate," Meier said.

Ironically, the summer melts since 2007 appear to have allowed disintegrating but still thick multiyear ice to drift this year into the relatively narrow channels of the Northwest Passage, the east-west water route through Canada's Arctic islands. Usually impassable channels had been relatively ice-free the past two summers.

"We need some warm temperatures with easterly or southeasterly winds to break up and move this ice to the north," Mark Schrader, skipper of the sailboat "Ocean Watch," e-mailed The Associated Press from the west entrance to the passage.

The steel-hulled sailboat, with scientists joining it at stops along the way, is on a 25,000-mile (40,232-kilometer), foundation-financed circumnavigation of the Americas, to view and demonstrate the impact of climate change on the continents' environments.

Environmentalists worry, for example, that the ice-dependent polar bear will struggle to survive as the Arctic cap melts. Schrader reported seeing only one bear, an animal chased from the Arctic shore of Barrow, Alaska, that "swam close to Ocean Watch on its way out to sea."

Observation satellites' remote sensors will tell researchers in September whether the polar cap diminished this summer to its smallest size on record. Then the sun will begin to slip below the horizon for several months, and temperatures plunging in the polar darkness will freeze the surface of the sea again, leaving this and other Arctic coastlines in the grip of ice. Most of the sea ice will be new, thinner and weaker annual formations, however.

At a global conference last March in Copenhagen, scientists declared that climate change is occurring faster than had been anticipated, citing the fast-dying Arctic cap as one example. A month later, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted Arctic summers could be almost ice-free within 30 years, not at the century's end as earlier predicted.

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


Marine Early Recovery Signs

This is a taste of good news about the global fishery. It states the obvious, that recovery is generally possible in most specific fisheries. It is certainly desirable and I will go further and state that recovery needs to approach natural optimal levels before proper fishing is permitted.

The industry has been strangled by a simple lack of resource ownership everywhere which has placed control in the hands of the most selfish bone stupid operators available and their political lapdogs. These demolished fisheries are now been reclaimed because their destroyers have abandoned their interest.

In Canada we struggle to restore the salmon fishery at great expense, only to have the bulk of the catch likely intercepted on the high seas. This type of fishery needs a true international management system that sharply curbs methods and catch.

I am more and more inclined to see the whole wild fishery abandoned for decades until a full recovery is proven and then harvested using sustainable methods. We can actually do it, because we are mastering the art of producing farmed fish of quite a few species.

The success of the salmon farming industry is actually major. While BC’s own fishery collapsed to less than 100,000 tons (if I recall the number correctly) the farmed salmon industry quickly replaced all of the original production. It is able to become a vast huge industry and this has happened in Europe.

We have been treated to carping by self proclaimed environmentalists over fish farming of any kind while the wild fishery has stripped the oceans bare without a peep. After all those pirates run under flags of convenience and can shoot.

I personally support the actions of navies to suppress piracy in general. I also support the use of navies to create a global fishery management system that benefits all mankind forever. The present chaos is untenable in even the short term and it is certain the global industry is headed for a general collapse.

Many Marine Ecosystems Can Recover Under Appropriate Management

by Staff Writers
Woods Hole MA (SPX) Aug 03, 2009

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Many_Marine_Ecosystems_Can_Recover_Under_Appropriate_Management_999.html
An international team of scientists with divergent views on ocean ecosystems has found that efforts to rebuild many of the world's fisheries are worthwhile and starting to pay off in many places around the world. Their study puts into perspective recent reports predicting a total collapse of global fisheries within 40 years.

In a paper published in the July 31 issue of Science, study co-author Mike Fogarty of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) of NOAA's Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, Mass. and 20 co-authors say that efforts made to reduce overfishing are succeeding in five of ten large marine ecosystems studied. Some of the successes noted are in U.S. fisheries.

Despite some good news, the researchers found that 68 percent of the worldwide fisheries examined by the team need rebuilding and that even lower rates of fish removals are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.

Based on the available data, the team estimated that lightly fished and rebuilding ecosystems account for less than 10 percent of world fisheries area and catch, but represent examples of opportunities for successfully rebuilding marine resources elsewhere.

Fogarty, head of the NEFSC's Ecosystems Assessment Program and a specialist in ecosystem based management, says finding a balance between fishing and conservation, while difficult, is possible and has been accomplished in a number of fisheries.

"Sometimes small changes have a big effect. It is not a 'one size fits all' management approach since each fishery has its own unique circumstances," said Fogarty, who helped provide data from the U.S. and worked on the analyses that helped shape the report.

"Many of the world's fisheries have a long history of overexploitation. Different management tools are needed, depending on the situation, to restore marine ecosystems and rebuild fisheries. It takes time.
There have been successes in New Zealand and on the U.S. West Coast, and there are promising solutions in other areas, but rebuilding efforts have to be done on an ecosystem basis and from a global perspective."

The new study follows a controversial prediction that wild caught fish will disappear from the oceans by 2048. That statement, contained in a 2006 Science article that focused on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services in the oceans, was made by marine ecologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Fisheries scientist Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington in Seattle and others disagreed with the prediction, and a debate ensued between fisheries scientists and marine ecologists about the status of the world's ocean ecosystems. But the two researchers soon met to discuss the issue through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Fogarty and scientists from various disciplines around the world were asked to work with Worm and Hilborn to find common ground on which to assess the prospects for restoring depleted fish populations and their ecosystems.

The team compiled and analyzed global catch data, and evaluated scientific stock assessments, research trawl surveys, and small-scale fishery information using dozens of models. They considered historical fisheries and current illegal or unreported fishery catches.

The scientific team addressed two basic questions: How do changes in exploitation rates (the amount of fish taken from the ocean each year) affect fish populations, fishing communities and yields, and which management approaches have proved successful in rebuilding marine ecosystems.

The authors caution that their analyses were based largely on managed fisheries in developed countries, where scientific data on fisheries have been collected for decades. There was far less data from other parts of the world, but nonetheless, there are positive signs in developing countries.

As one example, scientists, fishery managers and local communities in Kenya worked together to close some fisheries and restrict certain fishing gear, management efforts that have led to increased fish size and abundance and more income for fishers.

Although optimistic, the authors acknowledge that many problems face rebuilding efforts, which often take years or decades and have short term economic costs. On a worldwide scale, the redistribution of fishing effort from industrialized countries to the developing world, as is evident in Africa, has meant competition between local fishing boats and foreign fleets.

The authors also note that effective controls on exploitation rates are still lacking in vast areas of the ocean, including those beyond national jurisdictions.

Steve Murawski, chief scientist for NOAA's Fisheries Service, says the team's two-year effort has resulted in more comprehensive databases and a broader view of the issue.

"This study clearly demonstrates that in both developing and developed parts of the world, if fishery exploitation rates are reduced sufficiently, species and their ecosystems have the capacity to recover," Murawski said.

"The study drew together two scientific approaches, one focused on conservation of marine communities and the other focused on the science of fishery population dynamics. The result is a product that has profound importance in the design of management systems to achieve diverse goals for conserving and using marine ecosystems."

The 21 study authors, led by Worm and Hilborn, found that management tools can pay off in the long run. A combination of traditional approaches, such as catch quotas and community management, coupled with strategically placed fishing closures, more selective fishing gear, ocean zoning, and economic incentives hold promise for restoring marine fisheries and ecosystems.

Laws that explicitly forbid overfishing and specify clear rules and targets for rebuilding were seen as important prerequisites.

"When you reduce fishing rates, the sacrifice begins to pay off," Fogarty said. "Now it is a matter of getting the recovery underway. We are seeing this in the northeast United States in haddock, sea scallops, and other fishery resources. Sometimes the steps to get to recovery are painful, but the dividends at the end make it worthwhile."

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


El Niño Arrives

The early return of El Nino cannot be good news when the previous one happened in 2006 and was followed by the 2007 sea ice reduction. If we make the conjecture that this signals a pending heat release into the Northern hemisphere, then this presages a blow out in the Arctic during 2011. Aren’t I getting brave?

I like the idea of El Nino been the necessary heat pump. It solves a few issues, but the conjecture is bit premature. If right though, then the predicted sea ice collapse which has already begun in earnest this past four years will be easily completed by 2012 as I predicted two full years ago when everyone else was saying seventy years. Right now, Mother Nature is winding up to bat it out of the park.

Once all the ice is gone, the arctic surface water will warm up slightly over several years and have the effect of maximizing the open water season. I may actually get to sail the high Arctic fairly soon.

El Niño Arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10

NOAA scientists today announced the arrival of El Niño, a climate phenomenon with a significant influence on global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries. El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/images/surfacetemp_lastweek_300.jpg


Sea surface temperatures along the equatorial Eastern Pacific, as of July 1, are at least one degree above average — a sign of El Niño. Animation.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

NOAA expects this El Niño to continue developing during the next several months, with further strengthening possible. The event is expected to last through winter 2009-10.

“Advanced climate science allows us to alert industries, governments and emergency managers about the weather conditions El Niño may bring so these can be factored into decision-making and ultimately protect life, property and the economy,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

El Niño's impacts depend on a variety of factors, such as intensity and extent of ocean warming, and the time of year. Contrary to popular belief, not all effects are negative. On the positive side, El Niño can help to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity. In the United States, it typically brings beneficial winter precipitation to the arid Southwest, less wintry weather across the North, and a reduced risk of Florida wildfires.

El Niño’s negative impacts have included damaging winter storms in California and increased storminess across the southern United States. Some past El Niños have also produced severe flooding and mudslides in Central and South America, and drought in Indonesia.

An El Niño event may significantly diminish ocean productivity off the west coast by limiting weather patterns that cause upwelling, or nutrient circulation in the ocean. These nutrients are the foundation of a vibrant marine food web and could negatively impact food sources for several types of birds, fish and marine mammals.

In its monthly El Niño diagnostics discussion today, scientists with the NOAA National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center noted weekly eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures were at least 1.0 degree C above average at the end of June. The most recent El Niño occurred in 2006.

El Niño includes weaker trade winds, increased rainfall over the central tropical Pacific, and decreased rainfall in Indonesia. These vast rainfall patterns in the tropics are responsible for many of El Niño’s global effects on weather patterns.

NOAA will continue to monitor the rapidly evolving situation in the tropical Pacific, and will provide more detailed information on possible Atlantic hurricane impacts in its updated Seasonal Hurricane Outlook scheduled for release on August 6, 2009.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Written by fatih al-farahat in , ,


New Solar Cycle Prediction

This is some neat thoughts on our missing cycle 24. It is not actually missing so much as not arousing itself from a lengthening slumber. We sadly know so little about the apparent period of missing sunspots that we really lack a control for low activity periods which this could well be. Of course we will be experts in a thousand years.

The point is that the theoretical models that are likely worth little to begin with are been tweaked to adjust for the present data. A truck load of fudge has just arrived and no one has a clue what this means if anything at all.

If this carries on much longer, we can count on the press getting excited, probably just in time for the lights to go on.

New Solar Cycle Prediction

May 29, 2009: An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.

"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

The 1859 storm--known as the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare--electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused "only" $80 to 125 billion in damage.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/images/noaaprediction/prediction_strip2.jpg


Above: This plot of sunspot numbers shows the measured peak of the last solar cycle in blue and the predicted peak of the next solar cycle in red. Credit: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center

The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

"It turns out that none of our models were totally correct," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."

Researchers have known about the solar cycle since the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. At first glance, it looks like a regular pattern, but predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome. Cycles vary in length from about 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch out much longer. In the 17th century the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotlessness known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists.

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspot counts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.

"In our professional careers, we've never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted far beyond the date we predicted in 2007."

In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show timorous signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel's new, almost unanimous forecast.

According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research point of view, that's good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth's poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.

Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast.

"Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But use a pencil."