The Sun Has First Spotless Month Since 1913 571
radioweather writes "August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC September 1st 2008 (5PM PST)
we just witnessed the
first spotless calendar month since June 1913.This was determined according
to sunspot
data from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749.
In the 95 years since 1913, we've had quite an active sun, but activity has been
declining in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been spotless for 42
days total, but this is the first full calendar month since 1913 for a spotless
sun. And there are other indicators of the sun being in a funk. Australia's
space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the
expected date for a ramping up of
cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months."
As one of the links above indicate, there was a "sunspeck" reported August 21/22, though. Reader MikeyTheK adds a link to a story at Daily Tech on the spotless record.
imagine all the drivers getting lost (Score:4, Informative)
A weak solar cycle may postpone this problem.
Re:Sunspots down... temperature down? (Score:4, Informative)
The next few centuries could be fun!
Re:Is this really history? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it is history since it happened in the past. That's how history works. It's probably not a piece of history that will hold great meaning for many people, but this is the "News for Nerds" website.
Nope, there's not a lot of other significance, unless you're interested in things like radio wave propagation or the effect of solar weather on space hardware.
Maybe that's why... (Score:3, Informative)
the Arctic ice refused to melt this summer. Does anyone remember the warning in June that the North Pole would be ice free? [nationalgeographic.com]
Of course, their prediction was way off [theregister.co.uk] (as always). When someone realized how bad their prediction was, they fear monger some more with more dire warnings! [chron.com]
Remember that they have only been keeping sat. data for ice extent for a little over 3 decades, which of course is when the sun has been in a very active period.
Forecast pushed back (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The real reason this is News for Nerds (Score:1, Informative)
Well, the sun does rotate in 25-36 days (25 days at equator and 36 days at the poles).
Re:The real reason this is News for Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The real reason this is News for Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
No, on the contrary. Small "sunspecks" cannot be seen without modern equipment and thus do not exist in the earlier records.
Re:Sunspots down... temperature down? (Score:1, Informative)
You're really not up to date with this year's polar melting [uiuc.edu], are you ?
Re:The real reason this is News for Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
Check out NASA's Space Weather site [spaceweather.com] or the Stereo pictures NASA is getting and you will not wonder what is going on on the back side of the sun.
Relationship with global warming (Score:2, Informative)
After a bit of comment reading and Wikipedia reading, here's what has to be said to the global warning-related sarcasms. The sharp rise in temperatures is of course due to our activity, which is why we have nothing else like this rise in our long records of Earth temperatures dating back to hundreds of thousands of years ago (if I recall correctly). However, the high sun activity of the past century didn't help a bit, as it we reached at least 1,200 year activity high! Which means that if the downward trend is confirmed, this could be a God sent reprieve while we try to get hold of our gaseous emissions. In other words, yes it did contribute quite a bit to the problem, no it's not the sole root of the problem, or even the majority of it, and yes this is good news as the offset could be very beneficial to us. A fortunate coincidence of sorts.
I for one cannot wait until we can ice skate from New York City to London again!
Re:End of the Mayan Calendar? (Score:3, Informative)
Could this coincide with the upcoming Apocalypse on December 21st 2012?
Nah. Apocalypse? The classical Mayans would have had a party, which is what they did at the end of a lesser calendar cycle.
Then they'd either have started the Long Count cycle over or (much more likely in my opinion) modified it slightly to keep going. For instance, they could have added another cycle consisting of (for instance) 20 b'ak'tun.
The classical Mayans also occasionally dated events far in the future, which hardly suggests that they thought the world was ending. See the Wikipedia article on the Long Count [wikipedia.org], which, yeah, it's Wikipedia, but the article looks pretty decent. (There's also some support for the idea of higher-order cycles beyond the b'aktun [wikipedia.org] like I suggest above.)
Re:What does it mean? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. Google for "little ice age". That's the last time there was a serious drop in solar activity. Basically, sunspots are a proxy for activity in the solar furnace: the fewer sunspots, the lower the sun's energy output. Less solar output means less solar heating of Earth and lower global temperatures. One month isn't going to make a difference, but if the sun goes into a prolonged period of low activity (lasting a full solar cycle or more) we'll notice the results.
Best technique: Wait two weeks. (Score:3, Informative)
Best technique: Wait two weeks. The Sun's rotation is about 27 days.
Re:Sunspots down... temperature down? (Score:4, Informative)
This is precisely what is being discussed right now among some climatologists. The problem isn't so much that there is a solar sunspot minimum, but rather that the current trend is that the number of sunspots is still statistically dropping when in fact it should be going up dramatically.... given a more typical historical trend over the past couple of centuries.
The delay of the start of the next sunspot maximum cycle is what is causing all sorts of head scratching and wondering if there is some other cycle that until now hasn't been observed in the sun. All I can say is thank goodness that there is historical data going back to the 1700's that can confirm this is something that could happen, even if there are a few individuals who don't get it.
2005-2006 Reduction (Score:2, Informative)
Of course the CO2 emissions have been almost flat under the environment friendly Bush administration versus the vicious Earth-rapers Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Look at this speadsheat. [doe.gov]
Don't be so hasty... (Score:3, Informative)
Until Netcraft confirms this, it hasn't happened.
August numbers in (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No Bias? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I can't wait (Score:4, Informative)
Two weeks? You can get the data in ~8 days. (Score:5, Informative)
STEREO A and B are more than 70 degrees apart [nasa.gov], so you'd only need to wait 8.25 days from when it leaves the sight of STEREO A 'til it's seen by STEREO B. In a few years, we'll have real-time view of the far side of the sun. (until they come back around near Earth again)
Re:Evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
> Where is your evidence of valid "scientific papers questioning global warming ending careers without ever seeing the light of day"?
Start with the article linked by Slashdot, then wander over here, then Google is yer friend:
National Post: The Deniers [nationalpost.com]
Re:Evidence? (Score:2, Informative)
Typo.
http://www.google.com/search?q=(%22climate+change+denial%22+OR+%22global+warming+denial%22)+oil [google.com].
Plenty of evidence. They are not ignored by the deniers who pretend they're correct. They are ignored by actual scientists, because they're clearly incorrect, because their methodologies are invalid. Which is why they're paid for by deniers, rather than the ample funding for regular science. Of which there is quite a lot, that overwhelmingly confirms that reducing human generation of Greenhouse pollution would slow, stop or even reverse the Greenhouse threat.
Oh yeah - the Apollo Program did indeed land men on the Moon.
Re:Evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
You're invoking a rightwing Canadian paper's column that's anchored on a statistician whose official report to the government [wikipedia.org], disagreeing with some climate science, wasn't peer reviewed by anyone except some people he picked himself to review it. A disagreement that he backed up by saying the statisticians he disagreed with are "isolated from the statistics community". But yet you're claiming that the ones who disagree with those stats are buried and ignored.
That's quite a mess. Tell me more about Capricorn One [wikipedia.org]: why isn't that front page news, since those Moon landings are a hoax.
Re:The real reason this is News for Nerds (Score:2, Informative)
Or, if you RTFA, you realize that the lack of sunspots causes global cooling.
From TFA:
In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and SpÃrer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called a "mini ice age".
Re:Politics in Science (Score:5, Informative)
Sun spot cycles we a well known phenomenon. [wikipedia.org]
The low point of the cycle has been predicted for 2007-2008 for the last 20 years!
This graph [nasa.gov] is one such prediction that you say has been suppressed.
Re:Rubbish (Score:4, Informative)
Taoism and the Environment [crvp.org]
Bhudism and the Envirnment [fwbo.org]
Islam and the Environment [islamonline.net]
Christianity and the Environment [boredofstudies.org]
And that's only a small selection of the articles and discussions. I think the thing you are missing is the same thing many miss but the poster I was actually replying to pointed out:
Few actually follow the tenets of their religion in all matters. Regardless of what our upbringing tells us, we can and often do act or believe in a manner contrary to it .
However, I believe my point still stands. The vast majority of established religions include the idea that it is our responsibility (for whatever reason as my "summarily wiped out" comment was factiousness) to use and preserve the resources of this world.
Re:Standby and get ready! (Score:2, Informative)
A) There is no evidence to suggest that invisible space goats even exist, except for your written reference to them. There is sufficient evidence that humans exist.
B) There is no evidence that hypothetical invisible space goats have belly button lint. There are measurements of how much greenhouse pollution human activity generates.
C) There is no evidence that belly button lint from an invisible space goat should affect our climate. There is sufficient evidence that greenhouse pollution is indeed greenhouse pollution, and the amount added to our atmosphere is (more than*) enough to cause the global warming that we are measuring.
*It is widely believed but rarely reported that global warming over the past century had been dampened significantly by an opposing global dimming effect caused by particulate pollution.
There is no such thing as proof in the sense you probably mean, but in this case, there is far more evidence on the side of human activity causing global warming than there is for belly button lint of invisible space goats causing global warming.