Posted on 07/05/2009 5:16:00 PM PDT by neverdem
A sluggish, jet stream-like flow deep inside the sun could be to blame for the delay in increased solar activity that has been stumping astronomers.
(Read "Sun Oddly Quiet—Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age'?")
The jet stream, which is actually a plasma current called a torsional oscillation, has been migrating more slowly than usual through the star's interior, according to a team led by Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Every 11 years the sun generates new jet streams near its poles. These streams slowly shift from east to west toward the solar equator over a period of 17 years.
When the stream reaches a certain latitude, the sun starts producing new sunspots—relatively cool, dark regions on the sun that mark areas of magnetic disturbance.
But the stream associated with the current cycle of solar activity has been moving even more slowly than normal, Hill said.
Obvious in Hindsight?
Based on new data from sun-tracking instruments known as the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Hill and colleagues saw that it took an extra year for the stream to cross a distance of 10 degrees latitude, compared with previous solar cycles.
The new measurements also show that the stream has finally reached the critical latitude linked to sunspot production, which could explain why solar activity finally seems to be picking up.
"It's not clear whether this [slower jet stream] is a cause or a consequence" of the mysterious solar quiet, Hill said. "But the fact that we see it a couple of years in advance [of the sun's extended quiet] makes me think it's a cause."
Jesper Schou, an astrophysicist at Stanford University who works on SOHO, said that, since the stream's sluggish motion had shown up in previous data, in hindsight the solar quiet might have been predicted.
But both GONG and SOHO, right now the best instruments for monitoring the sun's interior, have been in operation for only 14 years. That's a relatively short period for scientists to get comfortable with the type of data being returned. By contrast, sunspots have been tracked as a measure of solar activity for hundreds of years.
"You need some amount of confidence" with the data before recognizing any discrepancies, Schou said. "After a while it's like, Oh, it looks very obvious."
Findings presented this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division in Boulder, Colorado.
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Obama’s fault.
Solar activity seems to be picking up? One sun spot at a time?
Bah.....NASA “scientists” are still guessing, and still saying that man-made greenhouse gases have more affect on climate than the sun.
I heard the Weather Channel founder speaking the other day. He said that sunspots were causing the earth’s Jet Stream to loop farther south, bringing unseasonably cool weather. That the sun has been in a no-sun-spot period for the last 8 years, causing NO Global Warming. And he did not have nice things to say about the GW crowd.
Sounds like they are still trying to understand what went wrong. Maybe they could read the scientific paper discussing this.
Coldest summer I can remember since my youth here in CT.
Hence the recent use of the term "Officil Sunspot" ~ that's one NASA says exists even if it doesn't exist.
Today we had the REAL DEAL and it came replete with "babies" in its vicinity. I think this is the first real, actual, traditional, everybody agrees about it Sunspot in 3 years.
It wasn't predicted BTW.
We might see increasing solar activity early in the coming year—activity that will increase maybe until sometime in 2013. The maximum is not expected to be as high as the last.
So it will be much colder on higher elevations and continue to be very hot at lower elevations. Run for your lives. ;-)
I enjoy the changes in weather and look forward to building the tower, elevators, etc., to go for walks on top of the glacier.
Can they just blame Bush and be done with it?
If you stare at it long enough you can see some green shoots too.
I may be old, but not old enough to remember the Maunder Minimum.
Can we send Al Gore to the solar surface to check out those sunspots?
I'm sure obamarama and those silly congress people are working on a Sunspot Stimulus Package at this very moment.
It is 45 degrees here in the Poconos this morning - - about 75 miles from NYC as the crow flies, but here the elevation is about 1400 feet.
Of 11 tomato plants - some as high as my waist and two feet across (covered with blossoms)- - only two have been able to set fruit at these very cold night time temps. Forecast indicates low to mid-50’s at night for the next week at least. Tomatoes won’t make fruit at these low temperatures.
If you look at http://www.spaceweather.com a Russian volcano has spewed SO2 into the air in the far north which will make the situation even colder since SO2 reflects sun light.
oops, wrong blackberries...
Everything but my okra, eggplant and peppers have said "enough already."
..........I may be old, but not old enough to remember the Maunder Minimum.......
Har,Har, har....... wonderful statement of age.
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