Posted on 06/14/2011 8:12:17 PM PDT by goodnesswins
WASHINGTON (AFP) – For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite. According to three studies released in the United States on Tuesday, experts believe the familiar sunspot cycle may be shutting down and heading toward a pattern of inactivity unseen since the 17th century. The signs include a missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles, said experts from the National Solar Observatory and Air Force Research Laboratory. "This is highly unusual and unexpected," said Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO's Solar Synoptic Network, as the findings of the three studies were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division .. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."
A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations. "A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions," wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found a range of 3.7 Celsius to 4.5 Celsius rise by this century's end compared to the latter half of the 20th century. "Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that they are right and we have both global warming and AGW. If it is also true that the world is losing solar input, then global warming is good because it will mitigate the cooling. If global warming is good and it is caused by human activity, then that activity is also good because it is offsetting the next Little Ice Age.
Go, humans!
Nice pic of Dr. Mann.
Don’t think so, I think we are just beginning to leave the longest and deepest sunspot minimum in my lifetime or possibly much longer.
I am a Ham Op and have followed this stuff most of my life.
We have known for over 100 years that weather patterns are more variable during sunspot minimums and maximums. There were some correlations drawn about this about 200 years ago.
Please forgive us if we confused a bit of dogma with real science.
I’m surprised you recognized him without his hockey stick...
could you please supply a link/source for your graph?
Much appreciated.
From: http://www.iceagenow.com/Lieberman-Kerry_bill_predicated_on_a_lie.htm
We’ve made the sun gods angry with our energy use and so now he’s going to freeze our butts just as Algore succeeds in cutting our heating oil and electrical supplies.
Also the global warming freaks have set out on a massive emergency climate engineering program to block the heat of the sun in the atmosphere.
Heh.....come to Texas. It's already late summer here.
Bloody hell. Do they all have to talk this way? Do they even hear themselves?
That’s exactly the book I was thinking of. :)
Pretty interesting read except they think the science FICTION writers can save the world. 8-D
The next thing you know, they’re going to be telling us that the sun affects the earth’s climate or something silly like that.
Yeah, thought of that myself. Maybe life imitates art, in which case we are screwed....
The biggest effect of sunspots is not from any difference in heat hitting the planet, but from the “umbrella effect”. High sunspot activity extends from the sun in all directions and deflects cosmic rays from reaching Earth and the other planets. Cosmic rays create clouds when they hit the atmosphere, and that causes cooling. So more sunspots means fewer clouds and warming. Fewer sunspots will mean cooling disproportionate to the difference in actual output from the sun.
Mann is prominently displayed in the Pantheon of leftist Climate “Science” Rogues in my home lab.
The next Ice Age is overdue and could arrive any day now.
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