Posted on 09/02/2008 7:12:34 AM PDT by milwguy
Drop in solar activity has potential effect for climate on earth.
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.
The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.
According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.
When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.
But this year -- which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 -- has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.
In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytech.com ...
[T]he growing season was shortened by the coldest and gloomiest start to June since records have been kept.
Women, children hardest hit....
AAHAAHAA! The magnificent bastard has successfully twisted (spelt "wrung") the panties of global warmers!
What about minorities?
Never underestimate the ability of these people to lie, there are trillions of $$ and a religion at stake. No matter how cold it gets they will just make up whatever numbers they need to in order to keep the AGW gravy train going
Just look at there numbers for JULY
That would not be very cool.
Who cares about what Al Gore things? What does Jor-el think?
Actually, Al Gore is the Anglicized spelling of Jor-el. When he fled to Earth, he changed his name to El Jor, and then his accent made it sound like, like ...
OK, look, the damned coffee maker is broken, all right? And I'm out of instant.
I love the way you named it the Gore/Hansen Minimum!
Isn’t that the way life works?
Have you tried Scope?
You forgot ‘minorities’.
Of course, minty fresh clouds of breath don’t cost as many carbon credits...
Just be careful what u wish for. Global cooling = less precip, of all kinds.
Global cooling is a bad thing en toto.
On the other hand, we can make firm conclusions about CO2 effects on climate with no data at all.
Regarding this news, and the obvious natural basis of the current “warming period”; when is it usually the “coldest” part of winter and the “hottest” part of summer? Answer, when the cold, or hot part of the cycle is peaking and the trend is beginning to move in the opposite direction.
We - humans on earth - have been in a centuries long “warming” period, and certainly, now, as that trend nears it’s end, it would seem “hotter and getting hotter”, than ever before (in OUR memories). Its the natural nature of cycles; not human activity.
It’s true that the sun is not a renewable energy source and it will eventually burn out. What we need to do is use an alternative biofuel that does not use up the suns energy, mushrooms come to mind.
You can pry my gun from my dehydrated cold dead hands.
Excellent thought. Mushrooms can be grown in a cave. They are however, a bit short on chlorophyll and they ferment poorly.
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