Replies

“To anyone who knows what that picture means, THAT IS A SCARY IMAGE!”

Can you help bring us commoners up to speed? I’m a lot ignorant of meteorological and weather stuff, but I do find that the FReeper experts are good teachers.

In short, the sun goes through fairly predictable cycles of sunspot activity. Sunspots cause strong magnetic fields that stave off inbound cosmic rays. Less sunspots mean more cosmic rays. That in turn means more clouds and a cooler Earth.

The current cycle is months late in starting. There should be several Earth-sized black spots in that image - sunspots. This has happened before. The result was the “year without a summer” back in (I think) the 1600s. If the sunspot cycle doesn’t kick off soon - say in a few more months - we may be looking at another one next year. Literally millions will starve. And there really is not a damn thing we can do about it.

BTW, this isn’t alarmism. It’s actual science (really physics), not computer model pseudo-science ecohobbit global warming cr@p.

There have only been two very small sunspots since the beginning of January creating a great deal of concern amongst "real" scientists who study sunspots and climate.

Maunder Minimum

The Maunder minimum is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called "Little Ice Age" in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world. This has led scientists to extensively study the possible influences of solar activity on terrestrial climate, as well as examine other stars for evidence of activity cycle behavior similar to the Sun's.

Today at spaceweather.com:

A good source of Solar information can be found at Nasa Marshall Space Flight Center.

I hope this helps you to get started on your reading. The sunspot reading for today is Zero.