Of Late, Fewer Sunspots Than Usual 628
esocid writes "The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. Periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. The sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, with the next cycle just beginning and expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why. In the past, solar physicists observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots, coinciding with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700." (More below.)
esocid continues: "The Hinode, a Japanese satellite mission with the US and UK as partners, has three telescopes that together show how changes on the sun's surface spread through the solar atmosphere. It orbits 431 miles (694 km) above the Earth, crossing both poles and making one lap every 95 minutes, giving Hinode an uninterrupted view of the sun for several months out of the year. Scientists are not extremely worried, but have added extra ground stations in case of interference from extra solar activity, and are ready for the Sun to resume its activity." (The Little Ice Age is fascinating, full stop.)
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of... (Score:4, Interesting)
2012 (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the Mayan Prophecy! (Score:4, Interesting)
2012? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://skepdic.com/maya.html [skepdic.com]
so the sun is just preparing to shut down, for the coming end of the world, of course
Wheat price vs sun spots (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/Public/education/bios/herschel.html [ucar.edu]
I find it amazing that this relationship (sun spots vs agricultural output) is dismissed so easily by the current anti-CO2 crowd. I am all for eliminating pollution but I am very worried that the focus on CO2 is completely wrong and is doing a great disservice to humanity.
CO2 is the breath of life.
_GP_
Re:Global warming my blue butt (Score:1, Interesting)
In other words this indicates that global warming is real, and explains the lack of temperature climb in previous years, the temperature is not climbing because all of the greenhouse gases are currently countering the heat loss from lack of sunspots, it also means things are much worse then the pragmatists say (but still likely not worse then what the doomsayers say)- because once the sun does start producing spots again the temperature is going to climb suddenly.
However it also means that we, humanity, us; have a reprieve- if we can fix this before the sun starts spotting again then we can avert the worst disasters that global warming might bring.
Re:Global warming my blue butt (Score:2, Interesting)
The source isn't credible, because it's James Hansen, whose pretty plugged into the global warming scene. He has a lot of shoddy fortran code to stick up for.
Better comparison is look at the IPCC forecasts versus today, and you'll see that the planet hasn't actually warmed.
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:3, Interesting)
Before you go claiming "tinfoil hat science" I would look at the universities where those climatologist teach. With Berkley, Stanford, and any other liberal biased university behind their name, you can bet on their position.
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:5, Interesting)
From http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512120523.htm [sciencedaily.com]
"Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene," said Cahalan. "Over recent decades, however, we have moved into a human-dominated climate that some have termed the Anthropocene. The major change in Earth's climate is now really dominated by human activity, which has never happened before."
My question is what is the optimum temperature to sustain life on our planet? I've searched and can't find that answer and would appreciate any help. I'm not denying warming or trying to flame, I am serious about the question.
Yes, the alarmists are lying (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This reminds me of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
For the life that has been around for the relatively recent past, the temperatures of the relatively recent past are preferred... that's how evolution works, things adapt to the conditions that are available, or they die out. There is no real optimum, any sudden change from the prevailing norm means some species or other is fucked.
Although, if you just want to maximise the total mass of alive stuff on the face of the Earth, tropical temperatures seem to work well (lot of biomass in the rainforests), so a planet that's mostly fairly warm, with some deserts at the equator where it gets hotter and some temperate regions further north is probably your best bet. Shame about the polar bears though.
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true - that is why the older, embedded politicians and companies like it so much. Who is hurt under cap and trade? STARTUPS!
As a startup, (building rockets, for example), I am not allowed to pollute, or at least have to pay some arbitrary amount for it. And who do I pay? My competition, who were established before the caps and now can just sit back and accept the checks.
Why are you against progress? You want anyone trying to create something new to be beholden to the status quo? Really, how does your system help anyone that is not a large corporation?
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
Errrm
Not only do climate scientists not take this into account, they actively conduct witch hunts on anybody who does attempt to even research it.
Read "The Chilling Stars" for an absolutely horrifying -- if you have any respect for the scientific method at all -- chronicle of how the rather plausible Svensmark theories on linkage of solar activity with cosmic rays and therefore cloud formation and therefore climate change -- and MOST IMPORTANTLY, how the historically low amount of clouds in the late 20th C. could very well be responsible for ALL the observed warming relegating C02 to an irrelevance -- was and still is, on the whole, treated with rather less respect and integrity than the Catholic Church gave Gailileo.
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:3, Interesting)
OTOH, patents on most common CFCs expired few years before and several manufacturers worldwide were beginning to manufacture CFCs and lowering prices. Suddenly the ozone layer hole hits the news and CFCs are banned in very little time. Including refrigerants such as R22 that has an excellent performance and should destroy very little ozone. And new, complicated, expensive and *patented* refrigerants show up to save the world.
But I think it would be unfair to compare this situation with global warming because in this case there is a lot of research from groups all over the world and there is a history of measurements to compare actual conditions.
Re:Global warming my blue butt (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, if it only were a straw man....
International Energy Agency Report [yahoo.com]
Now, if we blow through this money, and knock our emissions down, we still wind up with a CO2 level STILL HIGHER THAN TODAY.
http://ucsaction.org/campaign/3_6_07_sanders_waxman_climate_bills/explanation [ucsaction.org]
Meaning that, we will spend 45 trillion dollars to basically get today's weather.
Now, let's consider what this means. It means we have to use 1/5th of the energy we presently use now. By any conceivable measure, modern society places the wealth of a society based on how much energy it can consume. All things being equal, spending money to get the same or less of an effect will make people poorer. I mean, in a perfect world, where oil just poured out of a big new 100 billion barrel find in Montana and we didn't have to do anything about AGW, we could take that 45 trillion and feed the world, cure AIDs, build a base on Mars, and still have enough money to invade Iraq 20 times over. It's a lot of money to basically make us poorer.
We might have to do it, after all. But, let's call this for what it is. Because of climate change, humanity is about to become a whole lot poorer.
No wonder 20 meters is dead (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's ok. At least we're on the upswing rather than the downswing.
Natural Variation (Score:3, Interesting)
On a related note the period of 'no sunspots' is referred to as the Maunder Minimum, though it should be noted that there were still sunspots, and the cycles did continue, just at a greatly reduced intensity.
Note: I do not look at the sun directly, nor do I play someone who does so on TV.
Re:Dearie, that was satire (Score:3, Interesting)
The trillion-dollar question is what factors combine to affect the Earth's temperature, and whether/how these factors can be influenced by people.
There ARE "carbon cultists" in the sense the GP described -- people that truly have zero grasp of the science involved in climate change and in what practical effect any sort of change will have on the Earth's populations. Every climate model that suggests a strong correlation between human activity and mean global temperature also suggests that the effect of this human activity will linger for decades to come. This means that even the science that drives fools to invest in curbing carbon emmissions really says it's better to invest in dealing with the problems that we're supposed to see for decades to come *due* to future global warming. Better levees surrounding coastal cities, etc. Basically, whatever reasons global warming is "bad," we should be addressing those reasons because if those models are correct, we'll be dealing with those reasons soon enough. (Otherwise, what's all the fuss about to begin with?)
Mind you, cleaner energy, more efficient power generation, etc. -- that's all well and good regardless. Maintaining a clean environment is good regardless. However, this is NOT the same thing as "fighting" global warming (CO2 is not a *pollutant* any more than water vapor is). So people that say "hey, it's a good thing regardless" are not considering that 1) it may well be a meaningless thing if you're interested in a clean environment as opposed to affecting global temperature trends, and 2) it costs an enormous amount of money that may be put to far better, more practical use that is likely to be needed in the short run, at least if anthropogenic global warming proponents are correct.
To reiterate - if anthropogenic global warming proponents are correct, they're doing the wrong things about it. If they're wrong, they're doing the wrong things, period.
It's become too much of a political issue at this point for the science (and, in any case, reasonable action) to be relevant to most people, and that's not only a shame but truly an issue that will end up affecting us detrimentally. Because the unfortunate truth is that at the moment one cannot make billions of dollars mitigating the effects of [climate-change-driven?] natural disasters and ecosystem changes, but one certainly can by "trading carbon offsets" or creating biofuels (at the expense of food shortage).
Where are the numbers from? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is really really *really* hard to say. Our data on sunspots in prior to about 1750 is pretty dismal. Most of the mentions of sunspots are casual or even accidental observation. You can find a lot of data on this at the NOAA ftp site:
Reports of sunspots from 164BC to 1918AD [noaa.gov]
Monthly average of sunsports from 1749 to present [noaa.gov]
Note two things: One, that there were reports of sunspots between 1650 and 1700; two, that the data prior to 1749 is inaccurate and (pardon the pun) spotty.
Note that the monthly averages file (the second one) is fairly accurate, as the older data in that file was made by the Royal Observatory and the later data in that file was made by the NOAA. I find it really hard to jump to the conclusion that the little ice age was a result of sunspots. Without a time machine, I don't think we could say that with any degree of certainty.
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Petitionproject,org is a fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706060009 [mediamatters.org]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine#Case_Study:_The_Oregon_Petition [sourcewatch.org]
Re:solar warming, that's why. (Score:2, Interesting)
Now that we have established this, let's look at this discussion in the context of the history of the earth. There is a natural occurrence of global warming in our history (completely independent of random periods of sun spots or people...no....really, I mean it!). Given the incredibly short duration of the statistics that you mentioned to illustrate your point with respect to geologic time, I'd have to say that your statistics don't even form a full data point.
Face it, this kind of stuff happens. We may be responsible for part of it, but I think that after reviewing the evidence of global warming existing before our species (and being worse at some points) I'd have to say that it's a little bit of hubris to think that we, as a species, could be responsible for this. I'm not saying we shouldn't clean things up and take better care of the place (I advocate that, don't get me wrong), but I believe our motivation should come from the fact that we need to maintain our environment, not from the irrational fear that we are capable of burning up the planet by driving our SUVs (and yes, I have one. It hauls more people so we only have to take one vehicle instead of two small ones and frankly its just damned convenient).
Re:Dearie, that was satire (Score:2, Interesting)
Climate Audit is worth a read too.