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<p>Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."</p> <p>The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol.</p>

Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of...

Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark. Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey. Despite...

This image of the sun shows no sunspots continuing to be the case The sun seems to be back to its slumbering ways as we head towards the fall 2009. During the spring and summer months, sunspot activity, one measure of the sun’s energy output (another is the 10.7cm radio flux), was quite active. In July, the strongest flare in two years erupted from a spot that was rotating across the face of the sun. July was the third month in a row with heightened activity; this suggested a trend which would at last fall in line with projections...

Climate Change: NASA predicts the lowest sunspot activity since 1928. Is a major solar storm in the offing? While we worry about man-made warming, the sun may soon show us who's boss... But this dry statistic has more significance for the earth and its climate than all of Al Gore's gloom and doom about tailpipe emissions and rising sea levels. Whether the warm-mongers like it or not, the sun rules earth's climate — always has and always will.

NASA’s David Hathaway has adjusted his expectations of Solar Cycle 24 downwards. He is quoted in the New York Times here Specifically, he said: ” Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible.” NASA has caught up with my prediction in early 2006 of a Dalton Minimum repeat, so for a brief, shining moment of three years, I have had a better track record in predicting solar activity than NASA. Hathaway-NYT

Unfortunately for Democrats, global warming is much more complicated science than what their theories predict. The greatest contributing factor to global temperatures isn’t atmospheric carbon dioxide, it’s the sun. The sun’s release of energy has natural variations and it is currently in a state known as solar minimum; the lowest energy output by the sun as it oscillates through an approximate 11 year cycle of activity, also known as the Schwabe cycle. This is the primary reason for the colder than normal temperatures recorded across the country this summer.

Climate Change: NASA predicts the lowest sunspot activity since 1928. Is a major solar storm in the offing? While we worry about man-made warming, the sun may soon show us who's boss. It's the sort of news that makes one's eyes glaze over. "If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," said Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. Yes, space has weather, in the form of solar radiation that varies with...

Climate Change: The Earth has been warming ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. But guess what: Researchers say mankind is to blame for that, too.s we've noted, 2008 has been a year of records for cold and snowfall and may indeed be the coldest year of the 21st century thus far. In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October. Global thermometers stopped rising after 1998, and have plummeted in the last two years by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius. The 2007-2008 temperature...

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate

Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. We were...

A sluggish, jet stream-like flow deep inside the sun could be to blame for the delay in increased solar activity that has been stumping astronomers. (Read "Sun Oddly Quiet—Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age'?") The jet stream, which is actually a plasma current called a torsional oscillation, has been migrating more slowly than usual through the star's interior, according to a team led by Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Every 11 years the sun generates new jet streams near its poles. These streams slowly shift from east to west toward the solar equator over...

Enlarge ImageWake-up call. The sun's jet streams (in red, right) have reached their critical position, and soon the first sunspots of the new solar cycle may mar the star's currently placid-looking surface (inset).Credit: National Solar Observatory/GONG (main image); SOHO/MDI (inset) Maybe old Sol didn't hear the alarm clock. After a mysterious 2-year delay, the next 11-year solar cycle seems ready to begin, scientists say. That means the reemergence of sunspots, and with them periodic electromagnetic assaults on global navigation, communications, and power supplies--as well as brilliant auroras in the polar regions. For unknown reasons, the sun goes through cycles...

Inside the sun: more than just a glowing ball The unusually long quiet period of the Sun’s present activity may be due to the motion of “sluggish� jet streams beneath the solar surface, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Arizona, US. The scientists’ observations, which show an east–west jet stream has taken a year longer to migrate south by 10° than in the previous solar cycle, also indicate that the sun is moving into its next cycle. “We need to continue these observations for many, many more years to fully understand what is going on,� said...

Report indicates solar cycle has been impacting Earth since the Industrial Revolution Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes.  They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation.  Skeptics, though, argue that there's little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes. Now, a new research report from a surprising source may help to lay this skepticism to rest.  A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth's climate.  The report concludes...

G‑d made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night . . . And it was evening and it was morning, a fourth day.—Genesis 1:16, 19 One who sees the sun at its turning point should say, "Blessed is He who reenacts the works of Creation." And when is this? Abaya said: every 28th year.—Talmud, Tractate Berachot 59b Every 28 years the sun returns to the same position, at the same time of the week, that it occupied at the time of its creation—at the beginning of the fourth...

Nov. 7, 2008: After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life. "I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. His statement is prompted by an October flurry of sunspots. "Last month we counted five sunspot groups," he says. That may not sound like much, but in a year with record-low numbers of sunspots and long stretches of utter spotlessness, five is significant. "This represents a real increase in solar activity." Above: New-cycle sunspot group...

A sunspot has just appeared on the sun and many people are breathing a sigh of relief. Why?

Controversial research hints that solar cycle affects cyclone intensity. A new study suggests that more sunspots mean less intense hurricanes on Earth. But many hurricane experts are cool on the idea. James Elsner, a climatologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has analyzed hurricane data going back more than a century. He says he has identified a 10- to 12-year cycle in hurricane records that corresponds to the solar cycle, in which the Sun's magnetic activity rises and falls. Solar activity varies on a roughly 11-year cycle, in which its magnetic activity waxes and wanes.NASA/TRACE The idea is that increased...

The record-setting surface of the sun. A full month has gone by without a single spot (Source: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)) 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 Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was...

~snip~ NRC Canada’s FTP site which logs the daily 10.7 centimeter (2800 megahertz) radio flux from the sun just reported what appears to be a new record low in the observed data.~/snip~ ~snip~As we’ve seen from visiual cues and lack of sunpots recently, it is obvious that the sun is in a deep minimum. Expert forecasts that have called for the sun to be regularly active by now have been falsified by nature, and the question of the day is: how long before the sun becomes active again?~/snip~

Nothing is out of whack with the sun, a NASA researcher said this week, despite some scientists' suggestions that a lull in the weather there lately is unusually long, a phenomenon linked to at least one small ice age. < > "There have been some reports lately that solar minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true," said NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. The ongoing lull in sunspot numbers "is well within historic norms for the solar cycle." < >

I'm positively gleeful about the prospect of runaway global warming - anthropogenic (i.e., man caused) or otherwise. You see, we've got the solution to global warming. It's air conditioning. Eureka - the future is bright! But what if it doesn't get warmer? What if it gets colder? If some solar physicists are correct, the sun's magnetic activity may impact world temperature more than man-made greenhouse gases. And the sun's magnetic activity appears to be slowing. For more than 200 years, scientists have noted a correlation between sunspots (areas of intense magnetic activity) and temperature, even if they weren't quite sure...

Dubai: The food price and supply situation is turning worse, and in some places is uglier than expected and could lead to domestic turmoil, including the "risk of war", a top official said. The food price situation has already claimed its first victim - the Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis - who was forced to quit, and food ration lines in Bangladesh are becoming longer everyday with sporadic incidents, reflecting a near explosive situation due to hunger. "Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today... the consequences will be terrible," International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director...

Solar Minimum has Arrived 03.06.2006 March 6, 2006: Every year in February, the students of Mrs. Phillips's 5th grade class in Bishop, California, celebrate Galileo's birthday (Feb. 15th) by repeating one of his discoveries. They prove that the sun spins. It's simple. Step 1: Look at the sun. Galileo did this using a primitive telescope; Mrs. Phillips's students use the internet. Step 2: Sketch the sunspots. Step 3: Repeat daily. After only a few days, it's obvious that the sunspots are moving and sun is spinning, performing one complete turn every 27 days. This procedure worked fine in 1610. But...

The K7RA Solar UpdateSEATTLE, WA, Jun 11, 2004 Solar activity remains low. As the sunspot cycle declines, we are inevitably headed toward a year or two of quiet sun. The sunspot minimum still is several years away, however. This week average daily sunspot numbers were up slightly by more than 7 points to 68.3. Average daily solar flux was down nearly 10 points to 87.4. Geomagnetic conditions remained quiet to slightly unsettled. The chance of any geomagnetic upset this weekend seems very remote. The sun is nearly blank, but as of June 10, two sunspots were peeking around the edge...

In a recent discussion published in the Russian journal Geomagnetizm i Aeronomiya (Vol. 43, pp. 132-135), two scientists from the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences challenge the politically-correct global warming dogma that vexes the entire world.  Bashkirtsev and Mashnich (2003) say that "a number of publications report that the anthropogenic impact on the Earth's climate is an obvious and proven fact," when in actuality, in their opinion, "none of the investigations dealing with the anthropogenic impact on climate convincingly argues for such an impact." In the way of contrary evidence,...

Mystery of the Sun's Two North Poles By Tony Phillips Science.NASA.gov posted: 08:00 am ET 23 April 2003 Three years ago, something weird happened to the Sun. Normally, our star, like Earth itself, has a north and a south magnetic pole. But for nearly a month beginning in March 2000, the Sun's south magnetic pole faded, and a north pole emerged to take its place. The Sun had two north poles. "It sounds impossible, but it's true," says space physicist Pete Riley of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in San Diego. "In fact, it's a fairly normal side-effect of...