ARE SUNSPOTS DISAPPEARING?

SpaceWeather.com ^ | Aug 22, 2009 | Dr. Tony Phillips.

[ApplegateRanch]

Sunspots are made of magnetism. The "firmament" of a sunspot is not matter but rather a strong magnetic field that appears dark because it blocks the upflow of heat from the sun's fiery depths. Without magnetism, there would be no sunspots [snip] According to Bill Livingston and Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, sunspot magnetic fields are waning. The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992. ... Extrapolating their data into the future suggests that sunspots could completely disappear within decades. [snip] "Whether this is an omen of long-term sunspot decline, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, remains to be seen," they caution in a recent EOS article.

[ApplegateRanch]

Measurements of declining suspot activity tied to decreasing solar sunspot magnetic activity, which may be a harbinger of a new Maunder Minimum, and another "Little Ice Age"...or not. The main link is to the Space Weather sumarry-story about the actual paper, linked in the body of the excerpt.

[Drango]

Is this my fault or 0bama’s fault? I don’t know who to blame....OK....

Bush/Cheney/Rove’s fault.

[ApplegateRanch]

Speaking of possible Little Ice Ages in our future...

One for the Catastrophism list?

Not sure who other relevant list-keepers are.

[MarMema]

Just until 2012.

[ApplegateRanch]

It might be an unintended side effect of Rove’s weather machine.

[Drango]

I blame Al Gore. However there is not enough evidence to extrapolate this.

[ActrFshr]

If for lack of sunspots global temperature dropped several degrees, would it then be patriotic to waste gas and leave the lights powered by dirty coal on to burn extra electricity? Would Al Gore finally stop being super cereal?

[Drango]

Cow farts could save us. Or not.

[allmost]

That's the important graph. Not only are they occurring less, but the ones that do appear are trending weaker.

[ApplegateRanch]

That graph sends shivvers up my spine...pun intended. I live in SD, and this summer was way too cool for my garden’s own good.

Global cooling is a much worse senario than warming.

[Bhoy]

Will China and India be exempt from the tax to correct this? Or just us.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I sure hope not. Algore and his band of dumbasses will want to tax us to fix the sunspots too. And we’ll let him do it!

[Techster]

The hot weather crops like okra and tomatoes have not done well here in north GA this summer or last.

[wastoute]

It's all because Bush let us drive SUVs and invaded peaceful Iraq.

Μολὼν λάβε

[Crazieman]

ping

[Northern Yankee]

Well... the way I see it is that ole sun could use a little help to warm things up a bit.

I reckon we could just drive around a bit more, turn on more lights, get those cows to start burpin and such. Shoot, we'd be in gooood shape in no time. Yessirreee!

[lysie]

Ha! I'm doing my best. No cows, horses.

Good morning.

[Northern Yankee]

Good Morning!

Now if I could get that Andy Griffith twang down in my first post, I reckon it just might sound more convincing!

[lysie]

Ha. Gollllllyyyyy!

[Sherman Logan]

Why not a Big Ice Age?