Suddenly, the sun is eerily quiet: Where did the sunspots go?

A few weeks ago it was teeming with sunspots, as you would expect since we are supposed to be in the middle of solar maximum -- the time in the sun's 11-year cycle when it is the most active.

But now, there is hardly a sunspot in sight. If you look closely at the image above, taken on July 18 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, you will see a tiny smidge of brown just right of center where a small sunspot appears to be developing. But just one day before, there truly was nothing. It was a totally spotless day.

"It all underlines that solar physicists really don't know what the heck is happening on the sun," Phillips said. "We just don't know how to predict the sun, that is the take away message of this event."

And it's not like astronomers have never seen the sun this quiet before. Three years ago, on Aug. 14, 2011, it was completely free of sunspots. And, as Phillips points out, that year turned out to have relatively high solar activity overall with several X-class flares. So in that case, the spotless sun was just a "temporary intermission," as he writes on his website.

Apparently “teeming” in this case is another word for 3 or 4 very small spots. This has been one of the weakest sun cycles in recent history, and the next one appears as though it will be weaker yet (early indicators of the next cycle are already observable, as sun cycles start at the sun’s poles and progress towards the sun’s equator).

Given past history, there’s a pretty strong correlation between a weak solar cycle and a pronounced cold spell on the Earth. Lock in your propane/NatGas/heating oil price now (and do what you can to make sure your company will honor the price lock; a few years ago some companies unilaterally abrogated their price contracts and consumers ended up with no recourse), and put up an extra cord or two of wood now.

"It all underlines that solar physicists really don't know what the heck is happening on the sun," Phillips said. "We just don't know how to predict the sun, that is the take away message of this event."

Dummy....if you don't know doesn't mean that there is not cause hidden in plain sight...

King Obama has it spotted....and will issue an Executive Order to the Sun....

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow,and our planet began to heal.

Welcome King Barack "Canute" Obama the Great.....

...Obama issues an Executive Order to the Sun...

....to increase it's magnetic field....

and make a good crop of sunspots before elections in 2016....

(PhysOrg.com) -- Sunspot formation is triggered by a magnetic field, which scientists say is steadily declining. They predict that by 2020 there may be no remaining sunspots, and the sun may stay spotless for several decades.

The last time the sunspots disappeared altogether was in the 17th and 18th century, and coincided with a lengthy cool period on the planet known as the Little Ice Age....and lasted 400 years.

Good luck surviving with no coal fired electricity and GE modified seeds.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news203746768.html#jCp

also

Expect crop production to drop like a stone with accompanying decline in the population.

Seems to me Obama lies about everything....

So guess what....he also lies about so called global warming.

The recent solar history is quite similar to the “Dalton” minimum of the early 19th century. Note these analogues — regular strong cycles from about 1718 to 1787 similar to the period 1917 to 1989. The details do not match precisely but the overall history was similar. Then the 1787 cycle was long-lasting and had a secondary around 1794. The next peak was a “weak moderate” rather flat period from 1801 to 1804, similar to the 1999 to 2002 period. A long slow decline followed with about three years (1809-11) of nearly zero activity. That was similar to 2007-09. European weather was getting colder during these periods. Now we see the apparent end of a weak cycle, similar to the weak peak of 1816. That one combined with the massive dust veil of Tamboro to create an exceptionally cold year. We may avoid that around 2015-16 if there’s no similar volcanic event, but natural cooling continued beyond that dust veil’s life cycle well into the 1820s. From that point on, activity remained rather modest through a peak in 1829-30 and then resumed much stronger levels with the 1837-38 peak.

Another similar interval ran from 1870 to 1905, strong peak in 1870, weak in 1883 combined with Krakatoa’s dust veil, exceptional cold in North America through that decade, then more moderate-weak cycles in 1893 and 1905.

The idea that we will see another Maunder minimum could be overstated, many think it’s more likely to resemble the Dalton. Effects on climate are not that different, whenever the sun goes off the “regular strong” pulse, the climate seems to cool rather quickly. The reason is mainly due to less solar heat, despite the lack of sunspots which are relatively cool areas of the solar surface, the low-energy spotless sun has an overall lower ability to radiate heat and the “solar constant” drops off by several per cent.

My personal belief is that greenhouse gases are modifying this complex cycle and we’re going to be glad to have them insulating us from an even worse potential cold turn to our climate in coming years. Then maybe when the sun gets strong and regular again, we’ll be beyond fossil fuels anyway, that could be as early as 2025 or maybe as late as 2045 based on the analogues. Time will tell.

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