By Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That

What a day! First a major storm whacks the west coast, now we have the official start of solar cycle 24. Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. The signal for the start of a new cycle is sighting a particular kind of sunspot. That wait is over.

A magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged on the surface of the sun today. Just a few months ago, an “All Quiet Alert” had been issued for the sun. This reversed polarity sunspot today marks the beginning of Solar Cycle 24 and the sun’s return back to Solar Maximum. Solar Cycle 24 has been the subject of much speculation due to competing forecasts on whether it will be an highly active or a quiet low cycle. If it is a low cycle, it may very well be a test of validity for some CO2 based AGW theories. Only time will tell. Read more here. Also Anthony notes Russ Steele has some very interesting comments about the length of cycle 23 and a possible return of a Dalton Minimum here.

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