Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

[DrYB/C]

a. Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century
http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+H...ticle12823.htm

For the future, I suggest a new media meme: anthropogenic global cooling.

[jtabeb]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

a. Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century
http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+H...ticle12823.htm

For the future, I suggest a new media meme: anthropogenic global cooling.

Maybe not...

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...ycleupdate.htm

[Shakespear]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

The longest minimum on record, the Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715, lasted an incredible 70 years.

Something tells me that the level of sophistication in observing the Sun in the above mentioned period was not too high. Can we be sure that the Sun was as quiet as we assume?

I'm curious how they came up with this information.

[GRG55]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Something tells me that the level of sophistication in observing the Sun in the above mentioned period was not too high. Can we be sure that the Sun was as quiet as we assume?

I'm curious how they came up with this information.

I would be inclined to disagree.

This period starts shortly after Galileo Galilei's introduction of the telescope to astronomy, and during the time of Sir Isaac Newton, who introduced the reflector telescope to the world. I suspect that the scrutiny of the heavens, although conducted with equipment we may today consider primitive, was quite intense at that time in history.

Sunspots do not require modern equipment to observe. Galileo is normally credited with their discovery using the optical telescopes with magnifications that are generally accepted to be no more than 30X.

[Supercilious]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Something tells me that the level of sophistication in observing the Sun in the above mentioned period was not too high. Can we be sure that the Sun was as quiet as we assume?

I'm curious how they came up with this information.

Actually the Maya and ancients Egyptians were pretty advanced in using what we call Camera Obscura (pinhole cameras) in studying the sunspots.

In Europe that started much later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot#History

Even if they didn't have credit default swaps or the tube, our ancestors were not much dumber than us ... quite the contrary one may say.

How many of us know today how to calculate a logarithm of a trigonometric function without an electronic device, a slide rule or logarithm tables???

[Shakespear]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Yes !!!!!! Perfect way to do this. Thanks :-)

Even if they didn't have credit default swaps or the tube, our ancestors were not much dumber than us ... quite the contrary one may say.

Here I agree completely. The myth of our times is that the further back in time equals less sophistication. Emphasis on MYTH.

I once watched a documentary regarding European contacts with China going back 4000 yrs ago. This link will explain and amaze you.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/feb/18/local/me-9207

What blew me away was the fact that a woven wicker (if I recall correctly) bag found there was AIR TIGHT!!!

I think we will always be doing a bit of the following.

The discoveries are forcing scholars to revise their ideas of China’s earliest history.

[GRG55]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

a. Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century
http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+H...ticle12823.htm

For the future, I suggest a new media meme: anthropogenic global cooling.

Now that FRED has taken away the iTulip punchbowl just as the party was getting started over on the "Astrology and markets" thread , I thought it might be interesting to revive this thread and see where we are so far this winter [acknowledging that Winter has officially only just started]

Back in the summer the sunspot debate was raging.

From the article linked above:

"...In the past 1000 years, three previous such events -- the Dalton, Maunder, and Spörer Minimums, have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called a "mini ice age". For a society dependent on agriculture, cold is more damaging than heat. The growing season shortens, yields drop, and the occurrence of crop-destroying frosts increases..."

Another article in August [Armagh is in Northern Ireland]:

Forecasts of a sharp cooling trend are backed by the UK’s Armagh Observatory, which has been observing solar activity for over 200 years.

The observatory notes that solar cycles 21 and 22, which were characterized by being short and intense in their activity, led to the natural global warming observed in the 80’s and 90’s.

“Cycle 23, which hasn’t finished yet, looks like it will be long (at least 12 to 13 years) and cycle 24, which has still to start, looks like it will be exceptionally weak,” writes one observatory scientist.

A collection of photos from around the world, courtesy of the Sacremento Bee, from November 2008 :cool::

Winter descends on the Northern Hemisphere

Things haven't improved much since. santafe2 posted a picture of snow in Gaza over the holidays. Yikes! Too early to call it any sort of trend...that might take a few decades...but interesting that the Northern Hemisphere winter so far seems to be somewhat more severe than recent years.

Has anybody been following this closely, and provide a good, reliable update?

I am looking for facts about sunspot activity since the summer, not rants [pro or con] about climate change please. Somebody here should be able to translate the gibberish on the various sunspot tracking sites, which are filled with astronomical shorthand that means nothing to lay people like me.

[Judas]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Has anybody been following this closely, and provide a good, reliable update?

I am looking for facts about sunspot activity since the summer, not rants [pro or con] about climate change please. Somebody here should be able to translate the gibberish on the various sunspot tracking sites, which are filled with astronomical shorthand that means nothing to lay people like me.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news...-almanac_N.htm

The Farmer's Almanac says:

The Old Farmer's Almanac is going further out on a limb than usual this year, not only forecasting a cooler winter, but looking ahead decades to suggest we are in for global cooling, not warming. Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on Tuesday saying a study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the next half century.

"We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes," writes meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D'Aleo. "Studying these and other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future."

I suppose some folks would poopoo the Almanac, but as a New Englander who grew up in a family that grew it's own vegetables, it's an authority.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

And it is a very quiet time. If solar activity continues as low as it has been, 2008 could rack up a whopping 290 spotless days by the end of December, making it a century-level year in terms of spotlessness.

Hathaway cautions that this development may sound more exciting than it actually is: "While the solar minimum of 2008 is shaping up to be the deepest of the Space Age, it is still unremarkable compared to the long and deep solar minima of the late 19th and early 20th centuries." Those earlier minima routinely racked up 200 to 300 spotless days per year.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsyst...tless_sun.html

16 December 2008

In a preliminary report, released today on behalf of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the global mean temperature for 2008 is 14.3 °C, making it the tenth warmest year on a record that dates back to 1850.
Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia maintain the global climate record for the WMO. They say this figure is slightly down on earlier years this century partly because of the La Niña that developed in the Pacific Ocean during 2007.



La Niña events typically coincide with cooler global temperatures, and 2008 is slightly cooler than the norm under current climate conditions. Professor Phil Jones at the CRU said: "The most important component of year-to-year variability in global average temperatures is the phase and amplitude of equatorial sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific that lead to La Niña and El Niño events".


The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. Global temperatures for 2000-2008 now stand almost 0.2 °C warmer than the average for the decade 1990–1999.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...r20081216.html

[santafe2]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Has anybody been following this closely, and provide a good, reliable update?

I am looking for facts about sunspot activity since the summer, not rants [pro or con] about climate change please. Somebody here should be able to translate the gibberish on the various sunspot tracking sites, which are filled with astronomical shorthand that means nothing to lay people like me.

I find that a more agnostic, "global climate change" position is all we can presuppose. It's much too early to assign direction or causality to our climate shift. Most will agree we're seeing less normal intra-year shifts in climate. That change can be attributed to the activity of 6.5B humans or sunspots or the Mayan long count calendar or an upcoming reversal of the magnetic poles or grandma's fortune telling, arthritic knee.

As a whole, it will serve us better to continue to study and observe phenomena and to be less bold in the way we approach the expansion of our lives and the manner in which we change the earth until we're better equipped to understand the outcome.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

I find that a more agnostic, "global climate change" position is all we can presuppose. It's much too early to assign direction or causality to our climate shift. Most will agree we're seeing less normal intra-year shifts in climate. That change can be attributed to the activity of 6.5B humans or sunspots or the Mayan long count calendar or an upcoming reversal of the magnetic poles or grandma's fortune telling, arthritic knee.

As a whole, it will serve us better to continue to study and observe phenomena and to be less bold in the way we approach the expansion of our lives and the manner in which we change the earth until we're better equipped to understand the outcome.

With all due respect, and I sincerely mean this;

I find that a more agnostic, "world economic change" position is all we can presuppose. It's much too early to assign direction or causality of our economic shift. Most will agree we're seeing less normal intra-year shifts in the economy. That change can be attributed to too much debt, subprime mortgages, Fed policy under greenspan, elliot wave cycles, or astrological determinations.

As a whole, it will serve us better to continue to study and observe the economy and to be less bold in the way we approach the expansion of our lives and the manner in which we change the economy until we're better equipped to understand the outcome.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century

Way back in the Eighties while I was getting my Astronomy degree (some of the best waisted time of my life) my Planetology Professor was big into looking at what we could learn from Ant-arctic Ice. He said that, looking at the ice, it was very clear that the Solar Constant (amount of total energy ouput) varies by 10%. A HUGE effect. Other studies of the ice show fluxuations in the amount of CO2 which correspond to periods of climate change. No one knows whether we are warming or coooling but it is clear that the climate can shift dramatically and we better prepare even if it is to at least know what the die-off numbers are going to be. A head in the sand just means it doesn't really matter how big your brain is you are still stupid.