'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers

'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers

news.bbc.co.uk

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.

According to Prof Louise Hara of University College London, it is unclear why this is happening or when the Sun is likely to become more active again.

"There's no sign of us coming out of it yet," she told BBC News.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is interesting.

With the sun dimmest in a century as the article states... you would think that the planet would be cooling and that would curtail global warming somewhat but by most scientific accounts that's just not the case. As the article states:

In the mid-17th Century, a quiet spell - known as the Maunder Minimum - lasted 70 years, and led to a "mini ice-age".

This has resulted in some people suggesting that a similar cooling might offset the impact of climate change.

According to Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, this view is too simplistic.

"I wish the Sun was coming to our aid but, unfortunately, the data shows that is not the case," he said.

Prof Lockwood was one of the first researchers to show that the Sun's activity has been gradually decreasing since 1985, yet overall global temperatures have continued to rise.

"If you look carefully at the observations, it's pretty clear that the underlying level of the Sun peaked at about 1985 and what we are seeing is a continuation of a downward trend (in solar activity) that's been going on for a couple of decades.

"If the Sun's dimming were to have a cooling effect, we'd have seen it by now."
news.bbc.co.uk...

So it begs the question what is happening. It suggests that we are returning to a middle ground...

... still the earth gets warmer.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

the earth is primarily covered in water. Water takes longer to heat up, and holds heat longer than land. The average temperature on the earth is not going to coincide daily or even yearly with solar activity. The two are very much tied together, however the effect is over a longer time scale.

I'm indefinite on the exact amount of time that shows correlation, so I won't spout random numbers at you. Just know that the average temperature on earth is tied to solar activity.

reply to post by whiterabbit85


I am aware of that lag but still if the sun has been dimming since 1985 then the earth should have started cooling after 24 years but the exact opposite has been happening which is as far as I am concerned powerful proof pointing towards man made global warming.

I don't get how people can still buy into manmade global warming. The exact same scientists who are behind the new global warming fad, 30 years ago claimed that the exact same pollution was causing a global slide in temperature.

The icecaps have melted before, and refrozen before, the albedo of the planet has changed massively before, we have had ice ages and waring periods LONG before mankind was even a twinkle in mother earth's eye.

Man-made global warming is just an ego boost for mankind, thinking that we're significant enough to have the ability to destroy the planet which brought us into existence, and has endured four billion years already.

reply to post by whiterabbit85


Would it not make sense? If the ice caps melting and the increased average temperatures were caused by solar activity, then the caps should have started to refreeze and average temps should be going down. If the sun is dimmer but the problems are getting worse, then the something else is to blame.

To think that all the crap we have spewed into the atmosphere has had no effect on the planet just doesn't make any sense at all. We may not be the sole cause of global warming, or global cooling or whatever the new term for it is, but our actions sure aren't helping any.

reply to post by whiterabbit85


And I don't understand how people can't see it.

How does soot from coal fired plants in the mid west create acid rain in the northeast?

How do the hydrocarbons in things like hair spray cause ozone holes over the poles?

How do fertilizer we put on our fields create oceanic dead zones 100's of miles away downstream?

How do cities create their own weather?

We do all of those things and more that affect our climate and planet... how can people understand those examples and not get man made global warming?

Hmm. There seems to be two threads.

Sunspots, where have they gone?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

"news.bbc.co.uk" hummm....

Well , I have never seen a colder spring here in Spain , and we are almost getting to summer!

I agree with the sun activity going down , I disagree that it is getting hotter though , feels like misinformation from the MSM to me.


And I believe what the other poster meant is , sun activity should matter MUCH MUCH more than man activity. Imagine there was no sun , it is the origin of all heat we get.

It sounds as if people have been indocrinated to believe that Man > Sun , to the point that people even feel ridiculous to say the actual truth :
Sun >>>>>>> Man , period.

What man can do are slight changes , when you mention acid rain (which doesn't afect climate btw) , cities create their weather according to the humidity of the place (if you live near trees , rivers , sea , or by the desert) and pressure (height) , you cannot say that has as much impact as solar activity though.

CNN disinfo, I recall loads of sun spot activity , solar flares being reported over the last ten years or so but now they are saying there was not much activity up to now? Thats BS.
Ya the sun is now quiet, hence we just went through one of the hardest winters in 25 years , seems to be about spot on if you ask me, mini iceage here we come....or atleast a run of cold winters...

Originally posted by whiterabbit85
I don't get how people can still buy into manmade global warming. The exact same scientists who are behind the new global warming fad, 30 years ago claimed that the exact same pollution was causing a global slide in temperature.

Umm no they were not. Can you link all the sources at you have to show that All the scientist that claimed we were in fact headed for an Ice age in the 70's also head the GW agenda. As if this where the case, AGW would have been a laughing matter. Its not. Not even close. You think that all those opposed to AGW would have a field day with this if it were the case!

The icecaps have melted before, and refrozen before, the albedo of the planet has changed massively before, we have had ice ages and waring periods LONG before mankind was even a twinkle in mother earth's eye.

......umm i feel that you are wrong. The long term rends that we get that show cooling and warming cycles you mention come from Ice core data. The sites that the Ice core drills take place are being forcast to disappear in the next century. That is Ice that has been around for millions and millions and millions of years that provides the history of these cycle. Its melting. It could dissapear! That means that the record that shows cycles is being effected by factors(us maybe?) outside of conditions that allowed this ice record to acrue and survive over time.

Man-made global warming is just an ego boost for mankind, thinking that we're significant enough to have the ability to destroy the planet which brought us into existence, and has endured four billion years already.

When in all that 4 billion year history can we safely say that 6.5 billion people will have no effect? Where in that 4 billion year history have we seen mother nature deal with deforestation, urbanisation and industrialisation, massive agriculture. Damning, minning, river re-direction. massive land clearing for livestock. Desertification, soil erosion, soil salination, pesticide, herbacide and fertilization. When has this planet in the past dealt with massive fossil fuel burning. When? Because you sound really sure that the planet can blow all of this of merely because it is billions of years old. Were in the records and Ice core data, and soil samples can you show this is the case?
The rock has been here for billions of years, not life. There are fine parameters within the ecosystem that make environmental life as we know it hospitable with the opportunity to be plentiful. You think that we have no effect on the planet? We won't effect a rock that has been here for billions of years because it is rock, it is DEAD. But all the stuff that is alive, well if you are willing to let the status quo be so be it.
Please explain how AGW is an Ego-boost, I would have though it was a smack up-side to the head, that says wake up. Ego is when you think you are smart enough to think that you can do whatever you want to a planet and it won't matter.

Here's a little bit of info in relation to why we still have this 'global warming' nonsense going.. it's mostly because nobody cares about the real facts and nobody is listening or wants to know and are about ready to ignore anything that does not provide a profit or some other form of control over the populace.

In 1985, a geography researcher called Atsumu Ohmura at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology got the shock of his life... similar measurements recorded by his predecessors in the 1960s, Ohmura's results suggested that levels of solar radiation striking the Earth's surface had declined by more than 10% in three decades.

By the mid-80s there was undeniable evidence that our planet was getting hotter, so the idea of reduced solar radiation - the Earth's only external source of heat - just didn't fit. And a massive 10% shift in only 30 years? ... When Ohmura eventually published his discovery in 1989 the science world was distinctly unimpressed. "It was ignored," he says.

Many climate experts haven't heard of it, the media has not picked up on it, and it doesn't even appear in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

www.guardian.co.uk...

What amazes me even more is that this report is from Thursday 18 December 2003 so what the heck have we all been doing for the last 5 years? Has this really been ignored for that long? Have we all really been led down the garden path in order for us to all be taxed for our carbon footprint?

Uh oh...
Any time I hear *calm* I immediately think *before the storm*...
Considering what a storm from the sun could bring I surely hope that's not the case at all... Would not be a pretty sight.

peace

reply to post by whiterabbit85


I always wonder how people think we could make a difference after just a couple hundred years, .... we are a itch on the planet in time and in size ..... the mother Earth will shake us off when she is finished and no one will even know we were here in 200 years after we are gone....

Originally posted by whiterabbit85
I don't get how people can still buy into manmade global warming. The exact same scientists who are behind the new global warming fad, 30 years ago claimed that the exact same pollution was causing a global slide in temperature.

The icecaps have melted before, and refrozen before, the albedo of the planet has changed massively before, we have had ice ages and waring periods LONG before mankind was even a twinkle in mother earth's eye.

Man-made global warming is just an ego boost for mankind, thinking that we're significant enough to have the ability to destroy the planet which brought us into existence, and has endured four billion years already.

You reason well and make good arguments; but it is important to consider that the climate change is a complex interation between natural causes and man made ones. You can't cover a vast proportion of the worlds land mass, burning down forests and paving the land meanwhile burning millions of years worth of fossil reserves and not have at least some influence on the environment.

It actually doesn't take much to find evidence that we have influenced the weather on a local level. This study on local weather patterns in Europe shows that the weekend weather trends goes well beyond chance and is a direct result of the weekly cycle of human activity. Since the ecosystem is so complex and interconnected even small changes could have an impact overall, let alone wholesale deforestation and desertification.

[edit on 21/4/09 by Shere Khaan]