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SUN IN 'MAGNETIC MUDDLE' IN EVIDENCE AS SOLAR CORONAL EJECTION "CONKS OUT" AND RETURN OF NORTH BLAST BRITAIN LOOMS - CONFIRMING LIA (Little Ice Age) TYPE WEATHER.

Timely post!

So it appears AR1476 has not delivered the CME blow which some expected (and about which we at WeatherAction were circumspect), although there is still perhaps a possibility. The sub vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=95T5zzXrPD0
shows well what happened.

The plasma fell back to the Sun! This can be described as the plasma energy too low compared with gravity OR perhaps a better additional understanding is that the magnetic field in that region had more returning effect than normal. This could reasonably follow from the 4-pole (quadrupole) idea - which is nice. See symbolic view:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9503

However we have to be careful before we jump to conclusions and should see if the Japanese group yet has data which bear out their idea rather than say a 'below expectations solar activity' view.

2 important points about a (partial) quadrupole ('(p)4PSun') are:

(i) Something on these lines follows from generally lower than average solar activity at any given stage in the solar cycle which follows (under solar dynamo theory however limited it may be) from the two halves of the sun being out of synch ('SunOS').

SunOS => (p)4PSun
SunOS => weaker than average activity

(ii) The quadrupole idea will while being associated with a lowering of activity and solar wind speed also make a lot of non uniformity especially near the solar equator so there can still be some situations (even if fewer) where big solar events can 'get through'.

Back here on Earth the cold weather - eg blasts for Britain from the North - associated with this low activity sun have been very effective in the first week or so of May and after a short milder spell in south Britain look set to return from Tue 15th: See MetO map for Mon 14th onwards: (click the tabs forward)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/surface_pressure.html

This map well accords with a general wind direction change to more Northerly again from ~15th in WeatherAction long range forecast first issued mid April.

For N Hemisphere chart showing similar cold plunge and for
- DRAMATIC SNOW PICS 11 May Scotland,
- Europe + B+I comment (NOTE WeatherAction forecast also predicted warm Ukraine/Russia due to circulation pattern forecast) - Go to
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=453&c=5

Need I suggest readers look at the full BI 30day forecast (rather than increasingly distorted summaries from trolls) or if you want to get pressure maps they come with the BI 45d forecast (which also includes BI 30d) and with the 30d Euro forecast, via
http://www.weatheraction.com/wactmember5.asp

Thanks

Comment last edited by Piers Corbyn (Twitter) on Sunday May 13, 2012 at 4:12 PM EDT

Comment edited by Piers Corbyn (Twitter) on Tuesday May 15, 2012 at 7:46 AM EDT

Fascinating to watch the so far underwhelming transit of 1476 across the solar disc and to ponder this 'magnetic muddle" ingredient. Can you comment Piers on how odd or unusual such a situation the magnetics-out-of-synch is?

Emmet,

Yes. We await comment from the Japanese group on whether they find the magnetic structure of the sun has changed in the way they said. Logically something on the lines they said would be a consequence of upper/lower sun asymmetry - which is expected in unusually LOW sunspot cycles.

So, How low? The answer would be at Maunder/Dalton lowness. Maunder was ~360 yrs ago and Dalton ~200 yrs ago; so typically these situations occur for a couple of solar cycles every 170 to 200 years.

So what can we say about AR1476?
1. It was underwhelming as would be expected from 'magnetic muddle' - ie action OK but it couldnt 'get out'.
2. It did mark (face on) our R3 13-14th May
3. DESPITE being underwhelming it appears to have acted as the QV3 or proxy for such which triggered the M6.2 Chile quake on 14th - which confirmed our expected Major (M6+) quake in 13-14th
See
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9599&linkbox=true&position=17

So why a quake now and not 5-7th? (NB There was one on 1st less than 2 hrs before 2nd which was (2-3rd) the other QV period so far predicted for this month). The answer could be probably both
(i) magnetic muddle; but please note this will not be uniform on all sides of the sun
AND
(ii) maybe some lunar (Full/super moon) effect which happened on 5-7th

On quake forecasts in general
It is important to understand we are making positive predictions of specific events and often associated predictions of earth-facing coronal holes / major active regions which may be the triggers or part thereof.

Quakes OUTSIDE these periods are not against anything we may be saying because as yet we are not purporting to predict all big quakes - just probably most.
(In stats terms Chi-square test is not applicable. 'Gambling' against an 'a priori' probability of success is a fair test)

It's like predicting oil patches on a road and associated accidents.
Any other accidents by other causes are nothing to do with these predictions and they would not count against the success of oil patch + accident prediction.

Piers

Puzzles energise the mind eh? Thanks for the detailed response, Piers. Do you find a south Bz is associated with large quake timing - or irrelevant? For example CH516, hot on the heels of CH515, supposedly sent a dose of HSS our way in the given time frame of recent quake events & their build-up period. Christchurch, NZ had the largest (M4.5) quake, today May 15, since a swarm of M4+ in January. Otherwise May has been v quiet there -but rather active, M4+ over rest of NZ