Posted on 09/01/2008 6:43:44 AM PDT by gobucks
Drop in solar activity has potential effect for climate on earth.
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.
The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.
According to data from the NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, the last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.
When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.
But this year -- which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 -- has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.
In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.
The journal ultimately rejected the paper as being too controversial.
The paper's lead author, William Livingston, tells DailyTech that, while the refusal may have been justified at the time, recent data fits his theory well. He says he will be "secretly pleased" if his predictions come to pass.
But will the rest of us? In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. On was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a climate data auditing site, tells DailyTech the sunspot numbers are another indication the "sun's dynamo" is idling. According to Watts, the effect of sunspots on TSI (total solar irradiance) is negligible, but the reduction in the solar magnetosphere affects cloud formation here on Earth, which in turn modulates climate.
This theory was originally proposed by physicist Henrik Svensmark, who has published a number of scientific papers on the subject. Last year Svensmark's "SKY" experiment claimed to have proven that galactic cosmic rays -- which the sun's magnetic field partially shields the Earth from -- increase the formation of molecular clusters that promote cloud growth. Svensmark, who recently published a book on the theory, says the relationship is a larger factor in climate change than greenhouse gases.
Solar physicist Ilya Usoskin of the University of Oulu, Finland, tells DailyTech the correlation between cosmic rays and terrestrial cloud cover is more complex than "more rays equals more clouds". Usoskin, who notes the sun has been more active since 1940 than at any point in the past 11 centuries, says the effects are most important at certain latitudes and altitudes which control climate. He says the relationship needs more study before we can understand it fully.
Other researchers have proposed solar effects on other terrestrial processes besides cloud formation. The sunspot cycle has strong effects on irradiance in certain wavelengths such as the far ultraviolet, which affects ozone production. Natural production of isotopes such as C-14 is also tied to solar activity. The overall effects on climate are still poorly understood.
What is incontrovertible, though, is that ice ages have occurred before. And no scientist, even the most skeptical, is prepared to say it won't happen again.
The last time there was an ice age we did not have 1.5 billion nuclear-armed starving freezing unemployed Chinese and Russians
Herschel was one of those rare geniuses. A German hired by George III as a musician, he made his own telescopes, discovered Uranus (no jokes, please), the first planet ever discovered telescopically and the first planet whose discoverer is known to history. He was acknowledged to be the best observational astronomer of his day.
He demonstrated that grain priced strongly (and negatively) correlated with sunspot number. Is this any time to be burning grain in SUVs?
Obama says it's not no change you can believe in.
It is much worse than we ever thought. Global warming is preventing sun spots.
Oh the humanity.
Don’t forget, McCain just said that GW is real and we must deal with it immediately.
After the election, we had better get out the KY, ‘cause we’re gonna get screwed.
Mercury laden light bulbs are nothing compared to the more punitive things we are going to get pushed on us.
wow!
Sounds like we better do all the Global Warming we can.
First, we need to lower the price of gas at the pump.
Then, we can drive around in HumVee’s.
Since it is ‘known’ by these astronomers and scientists that a lack of sunspots does cause the global average temperature to lower, anything we can do to warm it up will help those who insist the weather should never change.
What I’ve noticed is that the weather didn’t ‘change’.
It simply moved somewhere else.
NEWSFLASH!!!
The sun affects global climates!
(sheesh...)
LOL
"Global Warming" may be the only technique whereby humanity can protect itself from the next inevitable Ice Age. If that's the case, then carbon is your friend.
Keep in mind that the last Ice Age ended only 8,000 years ago. And several times in the past, we had "Smowball Earth," where our planet was covered by ice, pole to pole (ended by huge amounts of volcanic greenhouse gases)
I don’t know much about the scientific principles behind this type of solar event, but I’m sure that all of the people driving SUVs are somehow at fault.
Have you noticed more and more the fanatics are switching from “global warming” to “climate change”. With this change in terminology the fanatics can they were correct whether warming or cooling occurs.
Bump, ping, ding.
This is as important as Palin’s selection- get this article out to everyone....
Bush’s fault
“The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots — is an influencing factor for climate on earth.”
That’s because the REAL SCIENTISTS are telling the CLIMATOLOGISTS they better wake up, and get the campfire going, because it’s gonna get colder for a while, if the sunspot activity stays absent.
“for how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?”
Maybe this winter?
Hey, AlGore, there's your consensus!
We didn’t need intelligent scientists to warn about cooling. I use the simple “not NYT” approach. If the NYT says it, it simply ain’t true. The NYT says
“warming,” and I run for my coat.
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