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Most Active Sun in 8,000 Years
Max Planck Society News Release

Posted on 10/28/2004 12:37:55 PM PDT by ckilmer

Most Active Sun in 8,000 Years

Summary - (Oct 28, 2004) The Sun is more active today than it has been in 8,000 years, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute. Researchers discovered that a certain isotope of carbon, C-14, depends on the amount of cosmic rays that reach the Earth's surface. When solar activity is high, the Sun's magnetic field provides a shield against these cosmic rays, and when it's low, the Sun lets more cosmic rays reach the Earth. By measuring C-14 levels in dead trees which were buried in the ground, the scientists were able to build up a historic record of solar activity. Scientists have found that solar activity levels only slightly influence the Earth's climate and global temperature.

Full Story - The activity of the Sun over the last 11,400 years, i.e., back to the end of the last ice age on Earth, has now for the first time been reconstructed quantitatively by an international group of researchers led by Sami K. Solanki from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany). The scientists have analyzed the radioactive isotopes in trees that lived thousands of years ago. As the scientists from Germany, Finland, and Switzerland report in the current issue of the science journal "Nature" from October 28, one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years. Based on a statistical study of earlier periods of increased solar activity, the researchers predict that the current level of high solar activity will probably continue only for a few more decades.

The research team had already in 2003 found evidence that the Sun is more active now than in the previous 1000 years. A new data set has allowed them to extend the length of the studied period of time to 11,400 years, so that the whole length of time since the last ice age could be covered. This study showed that the current episode of high solar activity since about the year 1940 is unique within the last 8000 years. This means that the Sun has produced more sunspots, but also more flares and eruptions, which eject huge gas clouds into space, than in the past. The origin and energy source of all these phenomena is the Sun's magnetic field.

Since the invention of the telescope in the early 17th century, astronomers have observed sunspots on a regular basis. These are regions on the solar surface where the energy supply from the solar interior is reduced owing to the strong magnetic fields that they harbour. As a consequence, sunspots are cooler by about 1,500 degrees and appear dark in comparison to their non-magnetic surroundings at an average temperature of 5,800 degrees. The number of sunspots visible on the solar surface varies with the 11-year activity cycle of the Sun, which is modulated by long-term variations. For example, there were almost no sunspots seen during the second half of the 17th century.

For many studies concerning the origin of solar activity and its potential effect on long-term variations of Earth's climate, the interval of time since the year 1610, for which systematic records of sunspots exist, is much too short. For earlier times the level of solar activity must be derived from other data. Such information is stored on Earth in the form of "cosmogenic" isotopes. These are radioactive nuclei resulting from collisions of energetic cosmic ray particles with air molecules in the upper atmosphere. One of these isotopes is C-14, radioactive carbon with a half life of 5730 years, which is well known from the C-14 method to determine the age of wooden objects. The amount of C-14 produced depends strongly on the number of cosmic ray particles that reach the atmosphere. This number, in turn, varies with the level of solar activity: during times of high activity, the solar magnetic field provides an effective shield against these energetic particles, while the intensity of the cosmic rays increases when the activity is low. Therefore, higher solar activity leads to a lower production rate of C-14, and vice versa.

By mixing processes in the atmosphere, the C-14 produced by cosmic rays reaches the biosphere and part of it is incorporated in the biomass of trees. Some tree trunks can be recovered from below the ground thousands of years after their death and the content of C-14 stored in their tree rings can be measured. The year in which the C-14 had been incorporated is determined by comparing different trees with overlapping life spans. In this way, one can measure the production rate of C-14 backward in time over 11,400 years, right to the end of the last ice age. The research group have used these data to calculate the variation of the number of sunspots over these 11,400 years. The number of sunspots is a good measure also for the strength of the various other phenomena of solar activity.

The method of reconstructing solar activity in the past, which describes each link in the complex chain connecting the isotope abundances with the sunspot number with consistent quantitative physical models, has been tested and gauged by comparing the historical record of directly measured sunspot numbers with earlier shorter reconstructions on the basis of the cosmogenic isotope Be-10 in the polar ice shields. The models concern the production of the isotopes by cosmic rays, the modulation of the cosmic ray flux by the interplanetary magnetic field (the open solar magnetic flux), as well as the relation between the large-scale solar magnetic field and the sunspot number. In this way, for the first time a quantitatively reliable reconstruction of the sunspot number for the whole time since the end of the last ice age could be obtained.

Because the brightness of the Sun varies slightly with solar activity, the new reconstruction indicates also that the Sun shines somewhat brighter today than in the 8,000 years before. Whether this effect could have provided a significant contribution to the global warming of the Earth during the last century is an open question. The researchers around Sami K. Solanki stress the fact that solar activity has remained on a roughly constant (high) level since about 1980 - apart from the variations due to the 11-year cycle - while the global temperature has experienced a strong further increase during that time. On the other hand, the rather similar trends of solar activity and terrestrial temperature during the last centuries (with the notable exception of the last 20 years) indicates that the relation between the Sun and climate remains a challenge for further research.

Original Source: Max Planck Society News Release


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
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To: ckilmer

Hope the sun isn't heading for a nova.

That would REALLY cause global warming.


21 posted on 10/28/2004 1:12:24 PM PDT by ZULU (Fear the government which fears your guns. God, guts, and guns made America great.)
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To: ckilmer

That explains the Red Sox.


22 posted on 10/28/2004 1:14:49 PM PDT by usapatriot28
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To: ckilmer

Haliburton is at it again!


23 posted on 10/28/2004 1:15:15 PM PDT by babydubya1981 (John Kerry is the answer to a very stupid question)
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To: ZULU

I dont believe thats anticipated for a while. On the other hand, have you ever read about a "killshot"?


24 posted on 10/28/2004 1:25:32 PM PDT by gnarledmaw (I traded freedom for security and all I got were these damned shackles.)
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To: gnarledmaw

No.

What is a "killshot"??


25 posted on 10/28/2004 1:54:03 PM PDT by ZULU (Fear the government which fears your guns. God, guts, and guns made America great.)
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To: ckilmer

Women, minorities hardest hit.

/stupid cliche


26 posted on 10/28/2004 1:58:38 PM PDT by clueless idiot
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To: ckilmer
Pssst - don't let the sheeple hear about this. They may form their own conclusions that climate change is NOT the product of man's activities, instead of swallowing the Chicken Little Soup we've been carefully feeding them since the 70's!

We can't let 30 years of lies, innuendo, distortions, and junk science go to waste!

NOTE: The above was an example of EXTREME, SNEERING SARCASM. Environ-MENTAL-ists are full of shizzle, just like their enablers in the MSM, and everybody is waking up to it.

27 posted on 10/28/2004 4:33:13 PM PDT by FierceDraka ("Support John Kerry - Or ELSE!" - The New Slogan of the Democratic Party)
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To: Search4Truth
Democrats blame Bush for not dimming the Sun.

Quick! Better get John "Breck Girl" Edwards on the case with a class action suit!

WE'RE GOING TO SUE THE SUN!

28 posted on 10/28/2004 4:39:06 PM PDT by FierceDraka ("Support John Kerry - Or ELSE!" - The New Slogan of the Democratic Party)
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To: PatrickHenry

Ping.


29 posted on 10/28/2004 4:47:26 PM PDT by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: Junior

Impossible. The universe is only 6,000 years old.


30 posted on 10/28/2004 4:59:41 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: ckilmer
Got link? (not that I doubt any of it, because I've seen confirmation elsewhere; just looking for more ammunition, that's all)
31 posted on 10/28/2004 5:28:12 PM PDT by inquest (We have more people patrolling Bosnia's borders than we have patrolling our own borders)
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To: ckilmer

32 posted on 10/28/2004 5:29:19 PM PDT by PureSolace (A Conservative bases his politics from his morals, and a Liberal bases his morals from his politics.)
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To: PureSolace

33 posted on 10/28/2004 5:30:09 PM PDT by PureSolace (A Conservative bases his politics from his morals, and a Liberal bases his morals from his politics.)
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To: PureSolace

34 posted on 10/28/2004 5:34:10 PM PDT by PureSolace (A Conservative bases his politics from his morals, and a Liberal bases his morals from his politics.)
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To: gnarledmaw

Got to love Ed Dames. He predicts the Killshot and tries to sell his remote viewing cds. Why would I want to learn to "read" the future when it is clear there won't be one?


35 posted on 10/28/2004 5:37:59 PM PDT by Lawgvr1955 (I think Kerry needs more cowbell.)
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To: ckilmer

Its gonna blow!!!! Run!!!!


36 posted on 10/28/2004 5:43:40 PM PDT by P-Marlowe
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To: ckilmer

Wait a minute. Carbon 14 dating is based on C-14 imbedding being CONSTANT. Now they say that C-14 embedding isn't? Interesting.


37 posted on 10/28/2004 6:16:10 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (God is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
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To: ckilmer

DAMMIT!! If only we had signed the Kyota protocols! Woe is us!


38 posted on 10/28/2004 6:21:09 PM PDT by badgerlandjim (Hillary Clinton is to politics as Helen Thomas is to beauty)
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To: PatrickHenry

Actually, I pinged you because I was wondering how many of the usual group will latch onto this as proof positive that global warming is a hoax, but will then turn around in another thread and lambast C14 dating as unreliable.


39 posted on 10/28/2004 7:21:10 PM PDT by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: Junior

Ah ...


40 posted on 10/29/2004 2:18:06 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
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