Sunspots Reach 1000-Year Peak 695
rlp writes "Researchers at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich are reporting that solar sunspot activity is at a 1000-year peak. Records of sunspots have been kept since 1610. The period between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum) was a period of very few sunspots. Researchers extended the record by measuring isotopes of beryllium (created by cosmic rays) in Greenland ice cores. Based on both observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years."
Scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, could the noise corrupt the GPS signal and offset the readings (but still be understood by the missile), or would it mess-up the system up completely to become totally incomprehensible?
Re:That doesn't debunk global warming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What do you know (Score:4, Interesting)
I mention them because of all the possible groups out there, they're about the last that would think to jump on the global warming bandwagon. And yet, Reason Magazine [reason.com] (Free Minds and Free Markets!), the definitive Libertarian magazine, has at this point pretty much accepted: global warming exists, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to it, and a variety of things will Need To Be Done about it, one way or another, sooner or later. And I think this sort of thinking, coming from this group, should serve as sort of a bell-weather in politics. And I think that their approach to the topic is one that the Republican Party should strongly consider mimicking: stop squabbling about what is and isn't happening, and why. Worry instead about What Should Be Done.
Now, granted, their ideas of what Should Be Done and the state of things are not very much in line with what the Democratic Party would probably favor. They had a recent article entitled The Convenient Truth [reason.com] on the topic (and they lambast current global-warming politicans for "mistaking panic for virtue").
I would advise any right-leaning free-trade-ish pro-capitalist or Republican types to take a good long look at Reason's articles on the topic of global warming and, with all due consideration, study, and time, try to develop a healthy attitude about the reality of global warming. (As a matter of fact, I would advise any left-leaning types who are actually care about these issues for their own sake, and not merely for some sort of anti-capitalist or anti-Western-decadence agenda, to take a look at them as well, perhaps an even longer one.)1000 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Aurora? (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, could someone enlighten me on the correlation between sunspots and solar flares? Yes, I know it is flares that cause the Aurora, not sunspots, but do increases in sunspots correlate to an increase in flares? It has been a few years since I was up on my solar topography as it were, so I am hoping for more Aurora in the next little bit - even if I need to travel up to the Youkon this year to see them again.
Re:That doesn't debunk global warming (Score:4, Interesting)
See this: http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/cl
"The amount of sulfur-rich gases appears to be more important. Sulfur combines with water vapor in the stratosphere to form dense clouds of tiny sulfuric acid droplets. These droplets take several years to settle out and they are capable to decreasing the troposphere temperatures because they absorb solar radiation and scatter it back to space."
Re:Climate (Score:5, Interesting)
In all seriousness, when I was working on my M.S. in Astronomy (circa 1993), we had a seminar given by solar physicist on sunspots. She showed two slides that were quite interesting: The first slide showed a plot of "global average" CO2 concentration and "global average" temperature and the second slide showed sunspot activity and "global average" temperature. From her brief look into the topic (by her own admission), sunspot activity appeared to correlate better than CO2. She submitted a NSF proposal to study it further and was rejected on the grounds "the cause of global warming is well understood and further research is not warranted.'
Re:That doesn't debunk global warming (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if one accepts the premise that sunspots do raise global temperature, the above sort of logic amounts to:
A causes C,
A is true,
C is true.
Therefore, B does not cause C.
where A = "sunspots", C = "global warming", and B = "carbon emissions".
Can you spot the flaw in this logic?
Re:Miniscule % Changes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:1000 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait
Trust the scientists... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just how are they dating these samples? Is there an assumption that each layer is a year? Are they assuming there has been no meltbacks removing several years records?
I am not a paleo-climatologist, but I think we can safely assume that the scientists who are analyzing ice cores are taking these sorts of things into account. Much like a sysadmin reading a log file or processing tcpdump output looking for evidence of hacking, you can safely assume that yeah, the experts did think of that.
When you have expertise in a particular field you tend to become better at perceiving patterns in the data sets you have. The open source 'many eyes' rule of thumb comes into play here, too.
Thus I think we can assume the PhDs in this field would notice an anomaly indicating that their data set may be corrupted, just like I could analyze a suspicious HTTP traffic log file, profile the activity from a specific IP address, correlate it with other sources of information, and make reasonable hypotheses as to what actually was going on, whether the activity was a bot or a human, etc. Or even whether the activity was a human trying to disguise itself as a bot (or vice-versa). And I don't even have a PhD, I just have a decade or so of experience.
Re:What do you know (Score:5, Interesting)
So the article says that the sunspots have reached 1000-year peak, but the NASA article says that sunspots are at the minimum right now (Solar Minimum). Which one is correct?
Re:What do you know (Score:1, Interesting)
2) This is a UN body. Can you name for me three UN successes in the past 25 years? Just three. I can name three failures in about two seconds... Rwanda, Darfur, Oil for Food program, 17 Iraqi resolutions, Lebanon, Iran, North Korea... Oh, I was only supposed to stop at three?
3) Can anyone list a single doomsday environmental prediction that has come true? Just one. That's all I ask. One single doomsday prediction that has come true. (I guess THIS time they're right)
And now for some environmentalist quotes:
Re:What do you know (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I said that "I would advise [people] to look at Reason's articles ... and, with all due consideration, study, and time, try to develop a healthy attitude about the reality of global warming." It is apparently obvious to you that basing your ideas about Science on political groups is Not Healthy. So, umm...
no, you shouldn't do that.
And I think a Healthy attitude is not particularly well served by breaking out the "omg Pope Middle Ages" comparisons on your opponents. There was a Slashdot article some time back about a study finding how political thought is essentially emotional, and not rational [wikipedia.org]:
I worry that this is the case here. You appear to appeal to the Scientific. If you do, indeed, value reason and logic, then I hope that you can quash the emotional reaction and see the reason in Reason's articles, and elsewhere, evaluating it on its own merits rather than how well it serves your biases....
On a related note, I wasn't able to tell: are you coming from more of a "pro-global-warming" angle or a "global-warming-is-fake" angle?
More sunspots == hotter sun (Score:3, Interesting)
Particularly the part that says: Since sunspots are dark it might be expected that more sunspots lead to less solar radiation. However, the surrounding areas are brighter and the overall effect is that more sunspots means a brighter sun. (Emphasis added).
Sunspots are relatively cooler, but the surrounding areas are hotter.
This may not perfectly account for global warming (and we don't have the data or models to do that anyway), but it sure points in that direction.
Re:To all you people (Score:5, Interesting)
Nevertheless, IMO the global warming alarmism being used to push a neo-communist agenda stinks. I've looked at the evidence, and humans as *the major* contributor just doesn't add up. I'm not convinced by "all the real scientists say so" either. There is too much censoring of dissenters for that to be convincing.
In many cases, the cures exacerbate real problems. For instance, demand for ethanol is causing more rain forest clear cutting to grow sugar cane. Paving large areas causes local warming (urban heat island effect) far in excess of the worst case estimates of global warming, and loses even more ability to recycle CO2 in the air. Eating beef/pork for breakfast, lunch, and dinner has causes a 10 fold increase in methane, much more that the increase in CO2. All the driving causes stress, and the fatty, sugary fast food combined with the lack of exercise has made most of us fat, driving up health care costs.
My point is that I would like to see a positive agenda. Keep and expand greenspaces and forests. I'm not a stickler for "everything wild" like Gore - parks are fine. Walk, ride bikes, use mass transit. Rent a car for vacations. Use a ZipCar for trips to the store to pick up heavy items. Eat meat only on feast days (e.g. Sunday - modify for your religion), like we used to, and observe a Sabbath (on a day appropriate for your religion). Getting rid of my car saves $300 to $800 dollars a month (depending on how nice a used car I would have gotten to replace it). I have a ready excuse why I can't jump up and drive all over the county on a moments notice. Stop the rushing around. Relax, enjoy your food instead of wolfing it down in a hurry. Eat slowly. Eat less. Fast on a regular basis - if only so you know what it feels like to be hungry. Eat only when you are hungry, not when you are bored, or pressured by friends.
Use our own oil (offshore drilling, Alaska, and/or plant it instead of corn for the cows you aren't eating as much of) instead of buying it from our enemies and carting it over the ocean. Save the oil for the truckers so your fresh veggies won't cost an arm and a leg. The trees will slowly take care of the CO2 if we don't cut them down and pave them over. Whatever you do, don't give control to the government to "fix" things. They will only make it worse. Sufficiently large corporations are indistinguishable from government in their capacity to foul things up.
Take these suggestions slowly so the affected industries have time to adjust.
Re:What do you know (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What do you know (Score:1, Interesting)
I have no problem with you expressing your myopic political fantasy, but I do object to your pseudo-skepticisim, misinformation and attempts to pass off the pontifications of politcal hacks as credible science.
"By the way, rather than insulting me, have you been able to come up with a single environmental doomsday prediction that has come true?"
The fact that I never claimed I could is probably as meaningless to you as any other fact that does not fit your dogma. I'm not saying that logic has anything to do with your rant, but it would seem a tad nonsensical to ask someone to point to a doomsday prediction that has already come to pass.
Re:What do you know (Score:5, Interesting)
The NASA article talks about this minimum, and the science article talks about the average Sun spot number increasing over the last 1000 years. This is surely interesting, as it explains quite a lot of the global warming. The astronomical influence on the weather system should be studied in more detail. For example, it is believed by some scientists, that the Sun's orbit around the Galaxy is causing Ice Ages as well. At the moment, this is all far fetched, but if we do not understand it better, we will never know for sure what is causing how much of the observed global warming.
Re:What happened 1000 years ago? (Score:4, Interesting)
Labeling (Score:4, Interesting)
"And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd."
But you like to label other people by defining anything you dislike as a "cage", and then throwing others into it arbitrarily based on a catchy song lyric.
Being libertarian is not a label, it is a general approach to analyisis and a certain core set of priorities, one deeper than most song lyrics or bumper stickers. I don't think you can ever apply the word "label" to a system of beliefs wide enough for members within that space to disagree on things (as Libertarians do).
I, too, am a Libertarian - as is most of slashdot really.
Re:That doesn't debunk global warming (Score:2, Interesting)
A is true,
B is true,
Therefore B causes A
where A = "global warming" and B = "carbon emissions".
Can you spot the flaw in this logic?
Reason magazine (Score:3, Interesting)
This is also the subset of evangelicals who repudiate evolution, the age of the earth, and pretty much empirical, factual reality itself. They dismiss the findings of science as "materialism" and they hold that the conclusions they derive from their interpretation of the Bible (which they don't think is interpretation, even though it changes over the decades) have more value and authenticity than the findings of conventional science.
Reason magazine speaks to a different part of the Republican party. The libertarian-leaning Ron Paul faction has little in common with the Christian Dominionist faction, other than that they are both trying to steer the party towards their own political philosophy.
I know I've already linked to it, but please read Kingdom Coming [amazon.com]. It may not be a perfect book, but it clarifies a lot of nagging issues that you see in the news. It's fascinating, and of course a bit frightening, to read that a sizeable number of people in the USA live by not just different beliefs, but by a different epistemology altogether. There is no common ground between them, and, well, Reason.
And before the "You hate all Christians! How sad." posters jump on me, don't. Just don't. I didn't say that, you know I didn't say that, and you can read my post to see that I didn't say that. Christian Dominionism exists, they (like Rushdoony) have written books, given speeches, and so on, and we can easily find out about them and their beliefs. They reject pluralistic society, reject science, and reject rationality. All while enjoying the fruits of pluralistic society and the scientific method. They don't represent all Christians, and I never said they did. Even the book I've linked repeatedly points out that they don't typify all Christians, or even all evangelicals. But they are quite prominent, and in fact finance the Creationist movement, the abstinence-only movement, and so on. So a lot of people who wouldn't agree with Rushdoony's more draconian ideas are still on board with them, meaning they have influence beyond their ostensible numbers.
So do I (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The problem is (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't just say your model is right and everyone who disagrees is wrong.
This is important to point out, because its the sort of thing that gets uptaken and repeated by people trying to paint themselves as intellectual victims: Nowhere did I say or imply that anyone who disagrees with a model is wrong. In fact, I said it's perfectly valid to criticize a model. I probably picked a bad example, but the fact is, we use models in all sorts of applications to predict behavior, and that to say that "models are only useful in fields not named climate prediction" as the great-grand parent implies is wrong.
Food for thought: We continue to test models when they show everything is all right (such as in aircraft design), when things go wrong in the model, we modify the design of the air craft. Climate change models are predicting a crash, and our reaction is the fiddle with the model. Difference? Our presumtion in air craft design is that things will probably go wrong. Our presumption in climate change is that everything will probably be all right. Is that an assuption that we really want to keep?
It's self-evident. (Score:3, Interesting)