The "official sunspot sighting" is "1021". Insane. With enough drugs I'm sure that anyone can find it. Just like the drug nasa was on.
Posted on 06/17/2009 4:57:29 PM PDT by decimon
The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.
At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.
Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.
Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.
The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.
"It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging."
The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not "broken."
Because it flows beneath the surface of the sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology. Shifting masses inside the sun send pressure waves rippling through the stellar interior. So-called "p modes" (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet.
In this case, researchers combined data from GONG and SOHO. GONG, short for "Global Oscillation Network Group," is an NSO-led network of telescopes that measures solar vibrations from various locations around Earth. SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, makes similar measurements from Earth orbit.
"This is an important discovery," says Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It shows how flows inside the sun are tied to the creation of sunspots and how jet streams can affect the timing of the solar cycle."
There is, however, much more to learn.
"We still don't understand exactly how jet streams trigger sunspot production," says Pesnell. "Nor do we fully understand how the jet streams themselves are generated."
To solve these mysteries, and others, NASA plans to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) later this year. SDO is equipped with sophisticated helioseismology sensors that will allow it to probe the solar interior better than ever before.
Right: An artist's concept of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. [more]
"The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on SDO will improve our understanding of these jet streams and other internal flows by providing full disk images at ever-increasing depths in the sun," says Pesnell.
Continued tracking and study of solar jet streams could help researchers do something unprecedented--accurately predict the unfolding of future solar cycles. Stay tuned for that!
My guess is we’ll have to increase global warming to counter the lack of sun spots.
Good, Now have these “Sunspot” NASA guys meet with and talk to the “global warming” NASA” guys, preferably outside during “Sunrise” so that the GW guys can get their heads around the concept of the Sun being a WARMING influence.
Oh yea, and have some Cows Fart on the GW’s BEFORE the Sun rises, for Comparison purposes.
Maybe throw in a Beach location at low tide also.....Seas rising myth buster.
They dont know they just make this crap up among themselves.
They cant tell me if it will rain tommorrow.
WE'RE DOOOOOOOMED!!!!
I agree. This has all become insane.
>>>These people are so desperate they are now demanding we start believing in magical jetstreams full of sunspots.
You remind me of the global warming nuts with whom several years ago I tried to discuss the sunspot theory. The prediction at the time was that decreasing sunspot activity would reduce global temperatures. They too stuck their fingers in their ears and sneered at the magical sunspots.
Events showed they were wrong. Like them do you think you get extra points for snide comments about the scientific method ?
All I see in this story is a scientist made observations and based on this data makes a prediction. Events will show soon enough if he is or isn’t correct. If correct, fine. If not then the data on the jetstream is worthwhile by itself, but we’ll know the sunspot origin question still requires more work. That’s the normal procedure in general science, no magic required. Seriously what’s the problem with that?
You mean, like Hanson's South American/African temperature "data"?
I found the missing reels of sunspots they forgot to load onto the "jet stream".
Next thing you know, the sun's projector bulb will burn out, leaving us all in the dark.
These blend into the surface, and can't be seen.
But NASA swears they are still there...you just need to squint a little, while turning your head slightly farther to the Left.
Ok, scientists, listen up. This is happening because periodically it does. No matter what the physical cause on the surface of the Sun that is keeping sun spots from forming, there is nothing we can do about it. It happens with regularity down through the centuries, probably since the Sun first started burning.
He reminds me of a person making sense. This report is ridiculous, sunspots minimums have always occurred. These scientists are weighting in on the side of global warming, ignoring the cooling temps and trying to pretend we have invisible sunspots that only they can see. This will not warm the planet back up so they can keep gouging the tax payer, but they figure if they can BS some people enough they can yet pull off the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the Human race.
There’s not now any scientific evidence that sunspots ride in on solar jetstreams.
>>>This report is ridiculous, sunspots minimums have always occurred. These scientists are weighting in on the side of global warming, ignoring the cooling temps
Pardon me but you are being hysterical with such a strawman argument. Yes sunspot minimums have always occurred, I don’t see this story saying otherwise. The question is by what mechanism they occur. Something causes them. This proposes to name that mechanism and predict the timeframe. Right or wrong we’ll see soon enough.
Malpractice in the global warming argument by Gore et al isn’t good enough reason to shut down science generally, or solar science specifically.
>>>trying to pretend we have invisible sunspots that only they can see
Good lord. If a doctor has an x-ray machine and uses it to detect a tumor, do you sneer how impossible this is because you don’t see the tumor with your naked eye. Well come to think of it maybe you would. But few would join you post-Madame Curie. The world has many international astronomers who study the sun. Again, now they know to look for this they will find and confirm the currents, or disprove it and make a splash in the journals.
>>>This will not warm the planet back up so they can keep gouging the tax payer,
How would it warm the planet? Even if correct this theory won’t turn the sunspots on or off a moment before they are ready. As to gouging the taxpayer, NASA has an interest in how the sun works. It’s people and equipment in space are vulnerable to solar effects. If we can protect billion dollar satellites and priceless astronaut lives we probably come out ahead, “gouged” taxpayer wise. If this sunspot research is costing more then a single spacesuit I’d be surprised.
Of course if you are just grasping at straws being generally opposed to government research that’s another matter. But that ship sailed with Los Alamos. Too late.
I don't know why AGW is being read into this article. I posted this because the solar jet stream research is interesting and may help to explain the sun spot cycle.
>>>There’s not now any scientific evidence that sunspots ride in on solar jetstreams.
I think we understand that. Repeating myself: “All I see in this story is a scientist made observations and based on this data makes a prediction. Events will show soon enough if he is or isn’t correct.”
If the sunspots show up where and when predicted, then we’ll have a starting point of evidence. If they don’t appear we’ll know we don’t. What’s wrong with that?
It's easier to think of these people as "Gore-Scientist-lites" rather than as real "scientists". Keeps the world rational.
>>>I don’t know why AGW is being read into this article. I posted this because the solar jet stream research is interesting and may help to explain the sun spot cycle.
I’ve seen worse and more absurd examples. I recall once AGW being thrown in a reply on a GEOLOGY thread as a reason to disregard the science of the rock issues discussed. Of course none of which in any manner whatsoever related to global temperatures. Some people just can’t, or won’t, separate the stuff from the stuff.
And I agree, the article was interesting. It certainly didn’t warrant the AGW backlash.
The attitude of many Freepers toward science has driven me to seriously consider discontinuing my monthly contributions to FR. I am tired of the constant snide comments from the idiots who "know better".
Yesterday I almost hit the abuse button on this thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2273626/posts which attempts to link Trotskyite communism to a belief in Darwin's theories...absurd!
I stopped reading at post #7. Calling all you dislike as being Darwinist is like calling all you dislike as being fascist. The thing loses all meaning.
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