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'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers [SUN SPOTS HAVE DISAPPEARED]
BBC News ^ | 2009/04/21 05:04:15 GMT | Pallab Ghosh

Posted on 04/21/2009 10:28:59 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee


Sunspots could be seen by the Soho telescope in 2001 (l), but not this year (r)

There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.

The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.

The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period.

Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity...

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: age; anthropogenic; capandtrade; catastrophism; climate; cooling; eeeevilsuvs; flares; gaia; globalwarming; gorebullwarming; hoax; ice; iceage; junkscience; keywordtrolls; maunderminimum; pagan; pleistocene; solar; solarflares; sunspots; suvs; youngerdryas
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee
Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell.

Que?

41 posted on 04/21/2009 10:59:17 AM PDT by rjsimmon (1-20-2013)
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee
"Sunspots could be seen by the Soho telescope in 2001 (left), but not this year (right)"

Important to note, there is an *11-year sunspot cycle*. In 2001, the Sun was near a peak. We are now in a minimum period of the cycle, an especially deep one at that. The next peak isn't due until 2011 or 2012, perhaps later.

42 posted on 04/21/2009 11:03:38 AM PDT by ETL (ALL the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: P-Marlowe
From the original posted article:

No-one knows how the centuries-long waxing and waning of the Sun works. However, astronomers now have space telescopes studying the Sun in detail.

This sentence really encapsulates the basic flaw with the entire man-made global warming supposition. Earth's climate is very complex with elements of atmosphere, inner earth dynamics, ocean movements and sun activity playing a role. To what extent we can measure or control or manipulate to achieve a desired effect is unknown.

The bottom line is that we have no idea what we can do to make the earth warm or cool with any certainty by implementing man-made activities. At this point, all we know for sure is that we might make it better, we might make it worse, or we might have no effect.

43 posted on 04/21/2009 11:05:17 AM PDT by Repealthe17thAmendment (Is this field required?)
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To: ETL
sunspot activity... [was] almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age"...

It's pretty dadgum amazing that the Puritans were able to establish a permanent beachhead in Massachusetts [& New England] during that time.

You think it gets cold in the Foxboro Stadium during the playoffs nowadays? Try to imagine what the poor Puritans were shivering through, back in the day.

44 posted on 04/21/2009 11:09:43 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee
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To: kempo

” And here we are going to all the trouble of trying to stop global warming and the sun is going to do it for us. Al Gore has to be disappointed. “

God has a wonderful sense of humor....


45 posted on 04/21/2009 11:11:28 AM PDT by Le Chien Rouge
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee
What's funny is that the scientist interviewed about this says it doesn't matter what the Sun does, because it can't save us from overheating from CO2 by going dormant.

He claims that in the mid-1980’s, the Sun was at its most active and has been less active ever since, but our temperatures have kept going up. As if the lead time for influence couldn't be longer than scientists have estimated (however, we've had some really active years for the Sun since, too).

I can't wait to watch people lambaste this guy when our global temperatures keep going down and the only reason is that the sunspots have stopped, making the solar wind, etc. all go down.

46 posted on 04/21/2009 11:11:33 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (When you're RuPaul posing as the wife of the president, you need all the make-up help you can get.)
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To: Smedley; GQuagmire

Even MORE panic! Aaaaiiiieee!!!

47 posted on 04/21/2009 11:13:24 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: ETL

Too much thinking for liberals.

Can you get it onto a postcard or bumper sticker?


48 posted on 04/21/2009 11:13:32 AM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: Repealthe17thAmendment

Absolutely correct. Science really is still in its infancy across almost all disciplines.

Excepting the soft sciences which are designed for infants.


49 posted on 04/21/2009 11:15:43 AM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee

wow. ‘cool’ stuff.

sol a blank canvas.. for now.


50 posted on 04/21/2009 11:16:30 AM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed.)
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To: ETL
Which of these statements from the same article are true?

the effect is so small that it has very little impact on the weather and climate on Earth.

the number of sunspots (through association with active regions) may influence the climate

the net result is a heating of the Earth

so the net result is cooling

51 posted on 04/21/2009 11:20:51 AM PDT by BubbaBasher ("Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals" - Sam Adams)
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To: MediaMole
I agree with you that global cooling would be worse than warming. Do you think that global cooling will get any air play? and the real consequences of cooling?
52 posted on 04/21/2009 11:23:47 AM PDT by 2001convSVT ("Only Property Owners that pay taxes should have the right to Vote")
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To: Constitution Day

53 posted on 04/21/2009 11:24:26 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (1000110010101010100001001001111)
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To: ETL
Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field deflects incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube (old-time television tube) or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-etl

So....fewer sunspots = more GCRs reaching earth, resulting in more low-level moisture-laden clouds.

Does this equal more precipitation, despite the cooler weather ?

One of the requirements for an Ice Age, or so I used to read, was increased precipitation to convey moisture to higher elevations where it dropped as snow, resulting in glaciers, which formed as the earth was cooler, and snow at higher elevations did not melt during the summer.

Have I got this right ?

54 posted on 04/21/2009 11:31:26 AM PDT by happygrl (It's time to Party like it's 1773.)
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To: rjsimmon
That's a British grammatical construction.

It sounds funny to us Americans, but that's how the British, and some parts of the English speaking world, speak.

55 posted on 04/21/2009 11:37:24 AM PDT by happygrl (It's time to Party like it's 1773.)
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To: nina0113

Well...if you predict an ice age and then predict global warming it’s kind of hard to miss. Good thing for us is on average we should be quite comfortable.


56 posted on 04/21/2009 11:39:19 AM PDT by ontap (Just another backstabbing conservative)
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To: nina0113
Lack of sunspots portends an ice age.

So those guys back in the 70s who predicted one are turning out to be right. IIRC, it was all Man's fault then, too, so I hope it's just coincidence.


We watched an old "In Search Of" (sort of a '70s TV version of the Art Bell show, with Leonard Nimoy as the host) about the "coming Ice Age". The funny part was, you could directly substitute "Global Warming" everywhere they said "Ice Age" and you'd have exactly what the AlGore-ites say today...
57 posted on 04/21/2009 11:40:17 AM PDT by BikerJoe
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee

has it ever been this absent such? ever?

Sounds like another

Biblical SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS, of this END TIMES era, to me.


58 posted on 04/21/2009 11:40:18 AM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: KayEyeDoubleDee

Somewhat one-sided article against cooling. We’ll see.


59 posted on 04/21/2009 11:44:53 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault ( Obama, you're off the island!)
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To: Constitution Day
I'll see your doom and raise ya rain...

60 posted on 04/21/2009 11:44:55 AM PDT by RandallFlagg (Satisfaction was my sin)
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