Free Republic

Solar minimum surprisingly constantMore than half a century of observation yields new discoveryNATIONAL INSTITUTES OF NATURAL SCIENCESUsing more than half a century of observations, Japanese astronomers have discovered that the microwaves coming from the Sun at the minimums of the past five solar cycles have been the same each time, despite large differences in the maximums of the cycles.Solar microwave observation telescopes in 1957 (top left) and today (bottom left). Fluctuations observed during 60 years of solar microwave monitoring (top right) and the solar microwave spectrum at each solar minimum (bottom right). The background is full solar disk images...

Those who think the political war on carbon will cool the globe or keep climate stable need to study climate history. Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles. The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth. Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit...

Solar Update October 2015 Anthony Watts / 1 day ago October 8, 2015 Guest essay by David ArchibaldIntroductionWhile Solar Cycle 24 is well into its decline in terms of F10.7 flux and sunspot number, several types of solar activity have risen dramatically over 2015. The solar wind flow pressure, for example, is now at a two decade high. That in turn means that the low in neutron count for this cycle may be more than a year out. This also means that the expected, much-awaited solar-driven cooling could be put off for at least year, with the consequence that the...

The Heartland Institute published a very revealing article about Leftist shock jock Naomi Klein who just published a new anti-capitalst screed entitled This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Essentially, Ms. Klein admits that the issue of climate change (formerly known as global warming) is not about science but really about overthrowing capitalism. “Our economic model is at war with the Earth,” writes Klein. “We cannot change the laws of nature. But we can change our economy. Climate change is our best chance to demand and build a better world.” The Heartland article goes on to say: For the author,...

....... If a chill in the air seems familiar, it's because New Jersey has more or less been locked in the same pattern for the last year and a half or more. "What we've basically seen for nearly the last two years is that the ridge in the west and a trough in the east," said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University. "And that's producing the record heat in the west and keeping things predominantly cold here." While the pattern has relaxed at times, such as during the last few weeks, it has more or less been in...

Both observational and proxy records of climate change often show quasi periodic variations similar to solar activity cycles over a wide range of time scales. However, the detailed mechanism and the extent of the influence of solar activity on climate change have not been clearly understood. Although the exact role of each of solar parameters on climate change has not been quantitatively clarified, several possible mechanisms are proposed; such as the forcing through total (e.g. Lean et al., 1995) and spectral irradiance (e.g. Haigh 1996; Kodera and Kuroda, 2005), solar wind (e.g. Tinsley, 1996) and the galactic cosmic rays...

Latest data shows solar activity has been falling steadily since mid-1940sIllustration mapping the steady decline in sunspot activity over the last two solar cycles with predicted figures for the current cycle 24 The sun is acting bizarrely and scientists have no idea why. Solar activity is in gradual decline, a change from the norm which in the past triggered a 300-year-long mini ice age.Three leading solar scientists presented the very latest data about the weakening solar activity at a teleconference yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, organised by the American Astronomical Society. It featured experts from Nasa, the High Altitude Observatory and...

This is a familar set of issues in one article. – AnthonyBy INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:20 PM PTEnvironment: The solar wind is slowing, but Al Gore is still spewing hot air. The Oscar winner is promoting civil disobedience to stop energy and economic growth as the first U.S. emissions cap-and-trade program begins.Speaking before Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative, junk science advocate Gore called on young people to take the law into their own hands because the climate, he claims, is a-changin’. He told the gathering in New York City that “the world has lost ground...

Santa brought us a new Sunspot prediction to be added to NASA’s incredibly high series of at least five ill-fated predictions starting in 2006. NASA’s latest peak Sunspot Number for Solar Cycle #24 (SC24) is down 60% from their original, but it still seems a bit too high, judging by David Archibald’s recent WUWT posting that analogizes SC24 and SC25 to SC5 and SC6 which peaked around 50, during the cold period (Dalton minimum) of the early 1800′s. According to Yogi Berra “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Team leader Dr. Mausumi Dikpati of NASA’s National Center...

On June 28, 2009, the House of Representatives, by a narrow margin (219-212), passed the Waxman-Markey bill. The so-called “cap and trade” bill has been sold as a system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the struggle against global warming. There’s a full-court press on the U.S. Senate to pass its version of “cap and trade”...The Obama administration’s EPA sees the increasing evidence against global warming as a threat to their agenda and has taken desperate measures. About a week before the House vote on “cap and trade,” the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released some EPA e-mails, demonstrating...

The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet Some people have asked me for copies of, or links to videos that provide an alternative view to Gore’s “consensus” on anthropogenic (i.e., man caused) global warming (AGW). A few of these videos have been broadcast in the United States (e.g., Glenn Beck, John Stossel), but most have not and probably will not be seen. Fortunately, we have the Internet to make these available. Click for Part I: Documentaries Part II: Lectures Australia’s James Cook University’s Geology Professor Bob Carter LectureThis is an excellent presentation about global warming. Carter’s a great presenter...

Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left.” Why? Because without bees, plants don’t get pollinated. Without pollination, say goodbye to fruit, nuts, and some vegetables. We also won’t have natural oils (such as olive oil, sunflower oil, hemp oil, etc.). And we don’t have many natural fibers, such as cotton. You can see how important the bee is to our livelihood and existence. Some economists say the bee is worth about $14 billion to our economy. That’s why I was so alarmed to...

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated...

The answer to what happened to America's vanishing honeybees is simple, a caller told entomologist May Berenbaum: Bee rapture. They were called away to heaven. No, wait, it's Earth's magnetic field, another caller told the University of Illinois professor. And when Berenbaum went on the Internet, she found a parody news site that quoted her as blaming rapper Kevin Federline and his concerts for the disappearance of the bees. Berenbaum loved it. The sudden disappearance of one-quarter of America's honeybees has brought out some strange ideas and downright myths. "I just can't get any work done," Berenbaum said. "I'm overwhelmed...

Scientists Identify Pathogens That May Be Causing Global Honey-Bee Deaths Scientists Identify Pathogens That May Be Causing Global Honey-Bee Deaths Science Daily — Researchers have identified potential culprits behind the wide-spread catastrophic death of honey bees around North America and Europe. A team of scientists from Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and University of California San Francisco identified both a virus and a parasite that are likely behind the recent sudden die-off of honey-bee colonies. ECBC researchers have identified potential culprits behind the wide-spread catastrophic death of honey bees around North America and Europe. (Credit: Scott Bauer, USDA/ARS) Using a...

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday. Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan. A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied,...

Honeybees and Sunspots may be interacting in one of the most unwatched ballets since television was created. Metaphorically speaking of course: Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium’s front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the...

For the greater part of the 20th century, Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991) demonstrated a close correspondence between Northern Hemispheric mean surface air temperature and the length of the solar magnetic cycle, including the 11-year periodicity characteristic of sunspot numbers and the 22-year oscillation of solar magnetic polarity.  There is also strong evidence for a 420-year solar cycle (Stuiver and Braziunas, 1989) and a 1500-year cycle (Bond et al., 2001).  Now, however, comes the granddaddy of them all: a possible 100,000-year solar magnetic activity cycle that may well be the driver of the 100,000-year climatic oscillation that is responsible for the...