listen... warming, cooling, it was 50/50. so i took a shot!!!
Ohh WOE is me... whys everybody pickin on me???
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.
“So, the New Ice Age just cancelled out Global Warming.”
Seems the SUN insists on having the ‘last word’ on this global change carbon credit inconvenient truth money robbing Al Gore investment portfolio pyramid scheme.
Another way to examine the length and depth of a solar minimum is by counting spotless days. A “spotless day” is a day with no sunspots. Spotless days never happen during Solar Max but they are the “meat and potatoes” of solar minima.
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008).Compare that value to the total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest."
Anything to portend doom. They didn't mention the proto-spot of last week with polarization indicating it was cycle 24 field.
> Sunspot data has been collected since 1749 <
Good article. And I would find it even more persuasive if the author knew that data are plural.
(The scientists that collected the data back in 1749 certainly knew!)
That’s , uh... GCCCITMRAGIPPS.
In coastal N.C. last week the highs were in the 70’s - all week, and last night the temp low was 64. Very unusual for August.
I think you're missing an important fact:
It's been CLIMATOLOGISTS all along (most prominently, Richard Lindzen of M. I. T., but also others like Patrick Michaels of the U. of VA) who have been the most effective and informed critics of the "pop theory" of global warming.
Of course, there have also been climatologists on the other side. But whenever there's something like an alarmist global-warming petition by scientests on a full-page New York Times ad, you'll find that the vast majority are from non-climatologic specialties -- geography, biology, chemistry, etc.
I love it.
Does that come with an English translation?
Just finished a great book, “The Last Centurian”, by John Ringo. It deals with the coming COOLING quite nicely.
“...many climatologists now believe solar activity
is an influencing factor for climate on earth...”
- - -
News Flash!
Haven't missed it at all, but appreciate the inclusion of Lindzen's and Michael's names to my collection of FACTS to be used against the kool-aid drinkers I encounter.
You can read more here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2055418/posts
It is 36 degrees here in Helena with buckets of snow in the surrounding mountains. Good ski season coming up.
Click on this link, then click on MacDonald Pass to see fresh snow:
http://www.blackfoot.net/~slk2948/MTcams.html
:-)
LLS
If the Lefties/MSM would put as much effort into counter-terrorism efforts as they have the global warming ‘crisis’ the world would be much safer in years to come.
It seems like liberals never give any thought to the possibility that they could wrong, just plain wrong. Conservatives I've worked with spend a good deal of their time on a project evaluating results and tuning efforts to keep the results maximized. Libs, OTOH, just make a plan, fund it with someone else’s money, and then go balls to the wall. By the time it's become obvious that their project is an abject failure they've found a new crisis and are off an running on planning to solve it, leaving in their wake a steady debris field of projects that were either designed to fix a crisis that wasn't, or poorly designed to fix a real crisis.
Just look back over the years at the number of such projects the Libs have embraced. Try to find ONE that worked!
If some terrorist group took the mercury light bulbs and started smashing them against the offices of the ACLU and a bunch of liberl strongholds like PETA, and other tree hugger organizations, a toxic waste dump would be created in all the right places. Then EPA would have to be called in to make sure that proper liberal cleanup procedures would be used. I do not advocate this, just bringing it up.
The liberal green beanies have created a toxic nightmare with their mercury laden light bulbs. There are no disposal plans.
If some terrorist group took the mercury light bulbs and started smashing them against the offices of the ACLU and a bunch of liberl strongholds like PETA, and other tree hugger organizations, a toxic waste dump would be created in all the right places. Then EPA would have to be called in to make sure that proper liberal cleanup procedures would be used. I do not advocate this, just bringing it up.
The liberal green beanies have created a toxic nightmare with their mercury laden light bulbs. There are no disposal plans.
Pollution from SUVs has caused the sun to burn out!!!
Only way to stop it now is to buy yer carbon credits from my company. But wait thats not all order now and you also get these ginsu knives.
listen... warming, cooling, it was 50/50. so i took a shot!!! Ohh WOE is me... whys everybody pickin on me???
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