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“All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.” I’ve managed to get a copy of the official press release provided by the Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate to MSM journalists, for today’s stunning AAS announcement and it is reprinted in full here: WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN? MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED Latitude-time plots of jet streams under the Sun's surface show the surprising shutdown of the solar cycle mechanism. New jet streams typically form at about 50 degrees latitude (as in 1999 on this plot) and...

It's official, Tampa Bay: December 2010 was the coldest December in recorded history. Overall, the average daily temperature, the high and the low divided by two, was about 10 degrees below the norm for the month. Tampa set a new record low at 53.2 degrees, besting the previous record of 54.5 degrees in 1935. It was even colder than January 2010's record-breaking cold snap. St. Petersburg's 56.3 degrees beat a record of 56.9, also from 1935. In Hernando County, Brooksville set a record at 52 degrees. The previous low was 54.1 in 1935. St. Leo, in Pasco County, also set...

<p>Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."</p> <p>The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol.</p>

Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of...

Climate Change: A team of international scientists has finally figured out why sunspots have a dramatic effect on the weather. It shows the folly of fearing the SUV while dismissing that thermonuclear furnace in the sky.Mankind once worshiped the sun. Now the world studiously ignores it as nations prepare to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in December. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark. Our own government is committed to fighting climate change whether it be though Son of Kyoto or our own growth-capping, job-killing cap-and-trade legislation known as Waxman-Markey. Despite...

Climate Change: NASA predicts the lowest sunspot activity since 1928. Is a major solar storm in the offing? While we worry about man-made warming, the sun may soon show us who's boss... But this dry statistic has more significance for the earth and its climate than all of Al Gore's gloom and doom about tailpipe emissions and rising sea levels. Whether the warm-mongers like it or not, the sun rules earth's climate — always has and always will.

The sun has been very quiet, with a decreasing number of sunspots and flarings since January 2002, and predictions of a return to the higher cycle seen at the end of the 20th century have not verified. But there have been some recent signs of increased sunspots as of early to mid June, but it's too soon to tell if it will prove meaningful. The calm on the surface of the sun ultimately will have some say in the course of weather across the Earth. For one, if the sunspot pattern does not revitalize soon, and continues for the next...

WASHINGTON – The sun is moving into a busier period for sunspots. Forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, but one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems. Researcher Doug Biesecker (BEE-sec-ker) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather prediction center compared solar storms to hurricanes: A weak cycle may mean fewer storms, but even one powerful one can be devastating.