Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 11/10/2008 4:13:31 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
Nov. 7, 2008: After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life.
"I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
His statement is prompted by an October flurry of sunspots. "Last month we counted five sunspot groups," he says. That may not sound like much, but in a year with record-low numbers of sunspots and long stretches of utter spotlessness, five is significant. "This represents a real increase in solar activity."
Above: New-cycle sunspot group 1007 emerges on Halloween and marches across the face of the sun over a four-day period in early November 2008. Credit: the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Even more significant is the fact that four of the five sunspot groups belonged to Solar Cycle 24, the long-awaited next installment of the sun's 11-year solar cycle. "October was the first time we've seen sunspots from new Solar Cycle 24 outnumbering spots from old Solar Cycle 23. It's a good sign that the new cycle is taking off."
Old Solar Cycle 23 peaked in 2000 and has since decayed to low levels. Meanwhile, new Solar Cycle 24 has struggled to get started. 2008 is a year of overlap with both cycles weakly active at the same time. From January to September, the sun produced a total of 22 sunspot groups; 82% of them belonged to old Cycle 23. October added five more; but this time 80% belonged to Cycle 24. The tables have turned.
(Excerpt) Read more at science.nasa.gov ...
http://www.astroengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/livingston-penn_sunspots2.pdf
I remain concerned that the "sunspot numbers" reported at spaceweather.com (NASA's solar weather site) are a bit inflated compared to historical numbers.
quick hypothesis with regard to earth temps, please, if you’re into that ?
Obviously the sun is racist.
“quick hypothesis with regard to earth temps, please, if you’re into that?”
I think we’re already into a cooling trend, and from what I understand that should continue for at least a few more years. That’s based on the solar cycle picking up from here.
If we remain in a minimum longer, temps will fall further and lower. A spike of a few sunspot groups doesn’t really mean much. If you look at historical sunspot number plots, the sunspot numbers will head above 50 consistently pretty quickly once the new cycle starts. So, that’s what I’m watching for. The paper I linked from the NSO points to a possible mechanism for the “minimum” events like the Dalton and Maunder minimums, and if one of those is happening then temps will fall to a point where there’ll be a strong negative impact - and making the global warming crowd look pretty silly in the process.
NASA has their fingers crossed and crossed again that this is the minimum, because global temperatures are going to make them look pretty silly if they keep falling.
Of course, they have not figured out yet that cheerleading has little effect on sunspot activity.
I love science in general, cosmology and astronomy in particular, but doesn’t it seem kind of strange to be talking about 11-year cycles in a star that is 4.5 billion years old?
*sigh* Anyway, I just turned 57.
“I love science in general, cosmology and astronomy in particular, but doesn’t it seem kind of strange to be talking about 11-year cycles in a star that is 4.5 billion years old?”
Probably not any more strange than talking about pulse rate on a person. :-)
It would be shortsighted to think that eleven year timescales are the ONLY important ones, though. The fact that the Sun has been relatively stable for quite a while is easy to take for granted...
Thank God.
We just about froze all summer.
“Right now is just a space between ice ages”
[Van Halen]
So far they've been really, really, really wrong.
Gonna' be a cold winter Fur Shur. Lake Michigan will freeze over like it hasn't done for 30 years, and large sheets will cover Lake Shore Drive and cause regular problems on the parallel Interstate a few blocks to the West.
Obama will declare a National Emergency to "save Chicago from the Lake".
bttt
I didn't think it was possible for the AGW folks to look more silly than they already do.....
I spent a winter working in the Benton Harbor area about 10 years ago. It wasn't all that cold, but man do ya'll get the snow! One storm dropped over 3' in about 4-5 hours. We went from a bare parking lot at the hotel where I was staying to about waist deep snow in about 4 hours.....
Then get you enough popcorn popping to last at least 4 years.
I've seen the ice pushed up over parts of Lake Shore Drive, and old newspaper files show pictures of ice pushing up against buildings in downtown Chicago.
It's coming.
Wow! Obama was elected less than a week ago, and he’s already solved global warming!
I didn't get to see that, but I built a cell site in Bridgeman, MI, right behind the McDonald's off of I-94. We had easement access to the site from the McDonald's parking lot. After that big dump, McDonald's plowed their parking lot and left a 20' tall pile of snow blocking our access the day the tower was delivered. The trucking company charged them $500/hr the whole time it was sitting there waiting for them to move the snow. I don't think I've ever seen anybody as mad as the manager of that Micky D's that day....
Hathaway (the NASA solar expert in the middle of these comments) has been “pushing” his theories that Solar Cycle 24 would be very high, peak very early, and last a very long time. He predicted solar cycle 24 would be clearly starting as early as summer 2006 - that would mean a sunspot count of 35-50 average.
However, these handful of spots in October, preceded by ONE spot in September, and ONE spot way back in January just MIGHT mean that “his cycle” is finally beginning to slope up. Maybe. If cycle 24 is actually going up - we might not be facing the problems of several cold decades like in the Dalton Minimum.
Then again - unlike Gore, I don’t we can control the sun with a democrat majority.
“A new high-latitude sunspot is emerging in the sun’s northern hemisphere. “ SpaceWeather.com
It’s warmer already! +6 this morning!
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