Free Republic

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...