Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/04/2009 9:09:25 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. The quiet has dragged out for more than two years, prompting some observers to wonder, are sunspots disappearing?
"Personally, I'm betting that sunspots are coming back," says researcher Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. But, he allows, "there is some evidence that they won't."
Penn's colleague Bill Livingston of the NSO has been measuring the magnetic fields of sunspots for the past 17 years, and he has found a remarkable trend. Sunspot magnetism is on the decline.
"Sunspot magnetic fields are dropping by about 50 gauss per year," says Penn. "If we extrapolate this trend into the future, sunspots could completely vanish around the year 2015."
(Excerpt) Read more at science.nasa.gov ...
"Whether [the current downturn] is an omen of long-term sunspot decline, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, remains to be seen," Livingston and Penn caution in a recent issue of EOS. "Other indications of solar activity suggest that sunspots must return in earnest within the next year."
I found the last line interesting, as my interpretation of what they're describing is that sunspots will still form, they will just be of such low intensity that they won't be visible in the white light spectrum...the only observations that folks could make during the Maunder Minimum.
You need to add a link to the article.
It’s an iceage I tell you, an iceage. We need some of that evil CO2 now. Science is so much fun!!!
LOL...you're blaming FR? Man up!
Our solar system is how many million, or billion years old? Don't start looking for trends and drawing conclusions based on a few years data. That's Algore science.
“LOL...you’re blaming FR? Man up!”
LOL yourself. It’s a trivial check to catch a blank field in a form.
Of course it was a mistake to not fill it in, mistakes happen.
The evidence for global warming is spotty at best.
“Our solar system is how many million, or billion years old? Don’t start looking for trends and drawing conclusions based on a few years data. That’s Algore science.”
If you look at the science, the trend has occurred independent of the sunspot cycles. That’s the concerning thing, along with it being a very elegant explanation for what happened during the Maunder Minimum.
However, they do make that exact point as well, that the trend could reverse. The point is, we’ll know in just a few years one way or the other. It’s interesting science regardless.
OK, will someone explain to non-scientist me if this means we are now in danger of freezing to death instead of roasting to death like Al Gore said?
They also poo-poo any correlation between those sunspot-minimum eras and their corresponding temperature decreases. In effect, there were other, much more logical reasons why the temperatures ‘only appear to have been related to the lack of sunspots.’
It's absolute madness. There are too many logical reasons why a sun with no sunspots can cause temperature decreases.
It's all the Global Warming!
We didn't listen!
Scientists still know very little about our solar system. We find new species of animals now on a regular basis, etc.
But they know for DAMN SURE that global warming is happening and that man is causing it. lol
You beat me to it. It's interesting to know, but what should we do about it? It sounds like (as we now know) the erf might cool a bit while our star takes a nuclear siesta. If we aren't quite getting bombarded with the radiation we used to, is there a chance that the sun might affect the global temperature of our delicate little stone drifting through space?
It sounds like we should prepare to use more oil to heat our homes for the next few years. It might be pretty cold for a while around here.
GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED THE SUNSPOTS TO GO AWAY. OH NO. THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END. AL GORE WAS RIGHT. WELL ACTUALLY HE WAS ON THE LEFT.
Let see, a large reflective mylar covered structure at L4 and L5 could direct more sunlight to the surface of the earth. Of course by large, I’m thinking about 5% of the circle area of the earth and it would need to be shaped to concentrate the rays rather than disburse. So lets see that would be about 13 million km2 each. You could make it out of a series of smaller mirrors.
This could prevent an ice age and if the solar activity does pick up, change the angle and then you no longer have the extra heat.
Of course, you could also really focus the light to say a 10 foot diameter on earth’s surface and you could really fry a building / tank
“It’s absolute madness. There are too many logical reasons why a sun with no sunspots can cause temperature decreases.”
It’s worse than that - such a temperature decrease has been observed historically, twice. The Dalton and Maunder minimums. The Earth experienced quite severe cooling, plenty enough to swamp the very weak effect of the .02% of greenhouse gasses that humans contribute.
The best estimate in my opinion is that we’re looking at 20-40 years of cooling from here. Cycle 24 is forecast to be longer and weaker than Cycle 23, which has already been a historically long and weak cycle.
Remember all the low temperature records and unusual snowfall last winter? There’ve also been many low temperature records set this summer. I don’t believe it’s coincidence.
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