Sunspots Reach 1000-Year Peak

rlp writes "Researchers at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich are reporting that solar sunspot activity is at a 1000-year peak. Records of sunspots have been kept since 1610. The period between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum) was a period of very few sunspots. Researchers extended the record by measuring isotopes of beryllium (created by cosmic rays) in Greenland ice cores. Based on both observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years."

Comments

Now you can breathe (the smog) easier.

[Dystopian Rebel]

This is the evidence that we've been waiting for. Let's throw out the junk science telling us to wreck our economy to save the environment. It's as false as the rest of the liberal hand-wringing and weeping.

If God had ~not~ wanted us to have lung tumours, he would not have given us chemotherapy.

More flawed science

[Technician]

In an attempt to determine what happened to sunspots during these other cold periods, Dr Sami Solanki and colleagues have looked at concentrations of a form, or isotope, of beryllium in ice cores from Greenland.

Just how are they dating these samples? Is there an assumption that each layer is a year? Are they assuming there has been no meltbacks removing several years records?

Dating a volcanic event and matching a tree ring to an Ice deposit is good, but much is unknown about the rest of the pack, missing layers and such.

The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer.

This alone may be an indicator of why there is no ice record. Past events may have melted the layer and they are in the ocean, not in the ice pack record. Lack of an ice pack record may indicate erasure of the record, not evidence it never happened.

Re:What do you know

[multi io]

Well, dissent against random stupid government policy XYZ may be "the highest form of patriotism", dissent against scientific consensus for no good reason is just stupid. Who would call dissenting from gravity (or evolution) "patriotic"?

Re:To all you people

[geekoid]

" I've looked at the evidence, and humans as *the major* contributor just doesn't add up."

oh wow, some podunk on slashdotdoesn't think it adds up and uses his own personal agenda to 'prove' it.
Well done.

"nstead of buying it from our enemies and carting it over the ocean."
hahahaha.. Apperently you just believe whatever the social group you associate with tells you.

Do you even know where most of our oil comes from?

Sacred cows

[TapeCutter]

Hi sumdumbass, I was wondering when the grand-poobah of the anti-science fundie's would turn up. As I have said recently, you're a master of irony and you haven't disappointed me with your post. And as another poster has already pointed out Chirac is a right wing politician. At least you haven't told any fibs this time, in fact your foot shooting post is quite humourous.

As for the creepy 1984 factor: Did you ever stop to think that the "global economy" is already subject to "global governance" or are you suffering from the delusion that international trade is based on trust alone?

Back to France: It's also interesting to note that ~70% of France's electricity comes from reactors, so it's kinda obvious they will be "winners" in the "inevetible 2012 treaty to curb emmissions"(Paraphrasing the Australian PM who is the last ally in the US administration's so far successfull attempts to kill any talk of negotiated reductions).

By a twist of fate France has low emmissions through a highly subsidized and often critisized industry. Some people would argue that the reactors are a "worse danger", but the scientific evidence and the track record of the reactors says otherwise. However if France sees it's reactors as a viable solution for more than the next few decades I think they will be in for a surprise.

You can rant and rave about "environmentalists" all you like (my disdain for political stereotypes is expressed in my sig), the fact is that nobody with any noticable political clout wants to "tear down civilization" (although some regularly blow various parts of it up). Both the US and Australia are large geographically diverse countries that could (according to DOE and CSIRO) switch to generating ALL their electricity from wind-power and existing hydro.

Nobody is suggesting that we do it all today, but over the next 40yrs, (the lifetime of a coal powered plant), barring any technolgical or economic "breakthroughs" it makes eminent sense from all sorts of angles to direct our energy infrastructure toward a large number windmills dotting farmland and ridges across both continents. Windmills are even compatible with national parks, with access tracks doubling as firebreaks but that would mean killing a "sacred cow", I myself would balk at putting one atop Ayers Rock.

A couple of questions for you to mull over:
Why do you have an irrational fear of a likely boost in economic activity that has more than one socially positive direction and little if any foreseable negative directions?

Coal is responsible for the majority of the worlds atmospheric pollution and as we all know the projected growth figures in places such as China and India are staggering. But regardless of whether you see yourself as a comrade or a consumer, none of us are buying coal for it's own sake, we are buying useable energy as electricity and/or heat. Why is the coal industry such a sacred cow in the "free market" of energy supply? Aren't "sacred cow industries" the preserve of "socialists" and "bleeding hearts"? As a trivial example of what I mean, a national standard for "net metering" is a fairly simple regulatory step that could be sensibly enacted relatively quickly, if not for said "sacred cow".

Re:What do you know

[Dan Ost]

I'm still not convinced because I haven't heard any compelling arguments.
Everything I've heard has been hype and appeals to questionable authorities.

The more I try to listen, the more it sounds like a religious argument.

Best post today...

[deesine]

mod up. Coming from a religious upbringing, the attitude, atmospherics, and tactics of the Human-Induced-GW crowd sounds to me like dogma.