Saturday, January 9, 2010

Solar Geomagnetic Index Hits The Unprecedented Low of 1

There is some interesting solar activity going on as we speak.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/07/suns-magnetic-index-reaches-unprecedent-low-only-zero-could-be-lower-in-a-month-when-sunspots-became-more-active

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When I saw the SWPC Ap geomagnetic index for Dec 2009 posted yesterday, my heart sank. With the sunspot activity in December, I thought surely the Ap index would go up. Instead, it crashed.



Annotated version above – Source: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Ap.gif


Source data: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/RecentIndices.txt


When you look at the Ap index on a larger scale, all the way back to 1844 when measurements first started, the significance of this value of “1″ becomes evident. This graph from Dr. Leif Svalgaard shows where we are today in relation to the past 165 years.



click for full sized image


Source: http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-Monthly-Averages-1844-Now.png



With apologies to Dr. Svalgaard, I’ve added the “1″ line and the most current SWPC value of “1″ for Dec 2009.

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