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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."
before the trolls come in - know that this doesn't debunk global warming. What most of the 'global warming' controversy is centers on "are humans contributing?"
the answer is absolutely undeniably: Yes
it's never been stated that we're the only cause.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Bah... just remember: the same people who sport bumper stickers saying "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" and are proud about getting their news from Comedy Central, they're the same ones writing letters to the editor in all the papers saying the debate is over, blah blah blah.
While I myself believe the planet is changing its climate, well, people like that just bug the hell outta me!
Point of order, sirs...
How can we know we're at the peak if we're also at the highest level we've been? Won't we have to wait until we dip for a while?
No doubt this story will stir up our global warming debate again. Rather than continue the same litany of posts, can we focus on informative or interesting posts about how sunspots could affect various parts of our climate (polar temperature, magnetism, radiation, ozone holes, etc.)? Do they have an effect? How large? Is it significant? Is this accurate? That would be something new and helpful.
/.ers want to read is another string of the same people posting the same links to previous posts and pasting the same arguments, counterarguments, sources, and denouncements of those sources as in the multiple threads we've had.
I think the last thing most
Just a thought.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
This is only saying that of the 1000 years of data, this is the highest we have seen it.
Right now we can't say much more than that. Correlating this data with global warming is very spurious. We know much more about earth's climate than the sun and would be making a large leap given the limited amount of data.
We can't really make much of this until we get more data. That will be a long time in coming. Assuming we don't kill each other before then.
No most of the 'global warming' controversy is centered on "are humans the major contributor?"
If word ever got out that we are not a major contributor then I think public perception will re-appropiate funds to issues they consider are more worthy.
It is possible to read into some evidance that even if all consumption and contributions were halted to zero from human activity then the phenomena that is 'global warming' would still continue.
Maybe this is more about politics and the peak fossil fuel problem, all governments need to bring in legilation and taxation to control the masses over their fossil fuel usage ahead of any fossil fuel global crisis, now seems like an ideal time to get started.
Personally I am more concern about non-organic toxins being distributed around the plant for which there is no organic cleaning system than of trying to label a problem with a natually occuring organic gas.
This is a redundant and old story. Last updated date from the article: 6 July, 2004 , almost three years old. Everyone should be aware of this science, but I would hope others have spent time trying to reproduce the data and find other ways to measure solar activity. Solar activity in general is undermeasured in the global warming/climate change debate, if only because of the difficulty of measuring the sun as a whole.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
And that informs us about our planet's sensitivity to GHG forcing how?
It's funny that climate change skeptics used to try to pick apart the global surface temperature record, which involves data collected from hundreds of locations for over 100 years, but are so quick to grab onto a 6 year regional trend on Mars as proof of something.
Can you show me the climatic feedback that minimizes the impact of the well-understood thermal forcing of CO2 (and methane, etc.) and the well-understood increase in atmospheric CO2 (and methane, etc.)?
Then we can talk.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
I made no statement as to whether or not this 1,000 year peak of sunspots explains climate change. I merely pointed out that your original big bold point was disingenous: Sunspot activity correlates to higher solar output, as the wikipedia article you linked to states. I'll leave it to you if you want to make a different statement supporting your position, your first one is wrong.
Well, when Comedy Central is more reliable than your favorite "news" channel (**cough** FOX), what other choice do you have?
Thanks,
Mike
My rebuttal: When we stop questioning science, stop questioning what we know about the world, science ceases to exist.
(By the way, I'm a proud Libertarian.)
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
Oh Holy Heck!
You, random slashdot poster, have just debunked it! Those flawed scientists with their flawed science totally forgot to account for melting! And then all their flawed scientist buddies missed that critical error in their peer reviewed flawed science journals. Thank GOD you read this article and caught this gigantic omission, or we might have been burdened by this flawed science for all eternity.
Or maybe you're a dumbass internet weenie who lacks imagination. Verifying the results of an ice core is pretty easy if you actually think about it. Take multiple samples from numerous locations, and cross-check the results.
Tip for the future: If you can come up with a simple "but it seems logical" hypothesis to debunk an entire peer reviewed scientific study in a few minutes, you're probably wrong.
There's a very big difference between "May I review that study to make sure your empirical evidence has been collected properly, and that the evidence supports the conclusions drawn?" and "*puts fingers in ears* Lalalala. What empirical evidence? I don't see any empirical evidence."
I realize that US bashing is currently in fashion, but whoever modded the parent insightful should be ashamed...
On the other hand, that show is full of shit.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
So you are telling me that I should base science on a political group? That sounds like listening to the Pope in the middle ages telling people that the earth is the center of the universe and the debate is over.
Well, this for starters:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Iris/
Whether you agree with Lindzen or his skeptics, one thing you must conclude from the article is that global climate is still not understood well enough for anyone to make accurate predictions of what will happen in 1 year, 10 years, 100 years. It is clear from the article that the role of clouds (which is only one component of many in climate change) is still being seriously debated, for instance.
And those predictions are always based on models which includes assumptions about how different components of climate change interact.
It's much easier to believe information about Mars because the readings are extremely accurate and only come from modern instruments, and we know there is no human influence on temperature. There are no politics in looking at 6 years of temperature data and saying "Yep, it's warmer!". Most people agree the Earth is warmer now as well. The Earth temperature record has problems because when and where and with what instrument you take the measurement are all important and have changed over the years. This is a legitimate debate.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
This is a UN body. Can you name for me three UN successes in the past 25 years? Just three. I can name three failures in about two seconds... Rwanda, Darfur, Oil for Food program, 17 Iraqi resolutions, Lebanon, Iran, North Korea... Oh, I was only supposed to stop at three?
That is classic ad-hominem, you are attacking the messanger rather than discussing the issue. This is especially irrelevant since we are discussing a scientific issue, you are talking about war and conflict areas.
Can anyone list a single doomsday environmental prediction that has come true? Just one. That's all I ask.
If by doomsday, you mean end of the earth, then.... *looks around* nope. Seems not. On the other hand, if you mean heavy human impact on the environment, then yes, there are plenty of examples. The Newfoundland cod stock collapse for instance. Plenty of environmentalists were warning for years that a collapse was happening. Warnings were ignored, then it happened.
Or take the deforestation of Easter Island, or this list of disasters. It happened on a local scale, yes, but with the population and technology we have today, we MIGHT affect ecology on a larger, perhaps even global scale.
And now for some environmentalist quotes
More ad-hominmens. Random quotes by fringe nutters does not a coherent argument make.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
On the other hand, that show is full of shit.
Using a biased source to purport another source to be biased is pretty hypocritical.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
That is classic ad-hominem, you are attacking the messanger rather than discussing the issue
So, can we count on the Al Gore faction to quit pouring out vitriol on Lindzen and the other climatologists who disagree with him, and just argue the science instead?
Didn't think so.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Attacking the messenger is valid when no one can think of three successes in 25 years.
I could quote areas where UN has suceeded (as I said, the UN works with more than peacekeeping issues), but it would just divert the issue and attract anti-UN trolls. Let me come up with a counter example: the UN is not the only player who has failed in the countries you mentioned. So has NATO, the US, the African Union, the EU... Should we discredit everything these agencies say? No, because they work with many other things too. The people working on the peacekeeping missions are NOT the same people working with The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. So again, what you are doing is ad-hominem.
Still, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if I keep chopping down trees that deforestation would occur.
Or that if we burn things that emit greenhouse gasses, the planet gets warmer...
Still, good examples, but nothing compared to the Global Warming scare tactics of today or the Ozone depletion
Oh, the Ozone "hole" is still there, it is just not mentioned often in the media these days. Ozone depletion didn't turn out quite as bad as some people warmed, BECAUSE WE DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Even some politicans, like Margaret Thatcher (who has a Chemistry degree from Oxford University), realised the dangers and helped drive through the Montrol agreement which caused a gradual reduction of manmade ozone destroying gases. The thinning is still there, but it is finally stabilizing and may slowly heal over decades. If you think the ozone whole was a myth, ask people in Australia about increased rates of skin cancer the last decades.
, global cooling
Myth, it was the popular press talking about it for a while, you did not have anything near the scientific conscencus we have on global warming today.
Fact is that the climate changes all the time. We have global cooling and enter ice ages and then we have global warming to get us out. Sometimes we cool form within an ice age and warm we are not in one. It's 100% natural.
No, it is not.
Besides, RTFA is about the possibility that the main source of heat in our solar system may be responsible for all this heat. Why is that such a far fetched idea?
Why is it such a far fetched idea that gases that trap heat locally (a process known to science since the 19th centruy), if released in sufficient quantities globally might have the same effect globally?
Those are examples from former leading environmentalists to show how wrong they've been in the past
Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. They are not the people presenting the data, it is scientists.
and to show their true agenda (the end of capitalism)
Also irrelevant. If someone has a political agenda, we might suspect that they slant or distort the data, then we check the data through a peer-review process.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
So, can we count on the Al Gore faction to quit pouring out vitriol on Lindzen and the other climatologists who disagree with him, and just argue the science instead?
Make up your mind, is it Gore or his "faction"? Do you have an example of such vitriol performed by Al Gore himself? I Googled for a while after it, and gave up after paging through hundreds of hits of Lindzen talking about Gore....
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
> we MIGHT affect ecology on a larger, perhaps even global scale.
Actually, we affect ecology simply by existing. Fishing changes fish population patterns, man's spread to every corner of the Earth has caused a decline in certain species and a (relative) increase in others (check out the pigeon population of NYC, for instance). In that sense, environmentalists who say the only way to 'reverse the damage' is to 'remove man' are right, and in fact intellectually honest -- although their PR skills are questionable.
However, most environmentalists grandly over-estimate our ability to cause global-scale disasters. Re your local disasters, disaster size does not scale linearly with technological growth, and ecosystems have a way of correcting themselves -- deforestation in England was a 'hot topic' in 16th and 17th centuries, with people complaining as England's forests were denuded for wood for stoves and ships. In time, the ecosystem bounced back (helped by the shift to steel for ships and gas for stoves) -- there are fewer trees in England now than c.10th century, but more than the 16th and 17th!
One of the best known debunked examples was Sagan's rapid-cooling scenarios ("nuclear winter"). The other problem is environmentalists refusal to see Earth's ecosystem as a evolving system, instead harking back to the past as a ideal that the future should aspire to. Ecosystems don't work that way! Millenia ago, most of Europe was an icy wasteland and the Sahara was an oasis. An observer then might decry the loss of the Sahara, but would they have predicted the advantages a temperate Europe would have brought?
Bottom line: there's nothing more arrogant than the assumption that a given region has the right to enjoy a static, unchanging climate for all of time.
I should probably add that this does not mean that polluters are let off the hook. On health grounds alone, we already regulate most pollutants. As for CO2 emissions (which is what most global warming campaigners campaign for), I would suggest that the "the end is nigh" scenarios many campaigners paint is both scientifically inaccurate as well as damaging to their cause. Rather, they should encourage (through various methods like research grants and tax breaks) use of a basket of energy sources, including solar, wind and nuclear. Nuclear is crucial -- solar and wind are nice but large markets need reliable electricity sources.
Go somewhere random
The low life span was mostly because so many children died young (some women had 10-15 children and were lucky if five of them survived childhood), distorting the statistics. If you survived the first 10 years you usually had - getting killed in war aside - another 50 years before you. Even people with 70-80 years of age was not unknown.
Please.... Speak for yourself.
I'm far from a libertarian, and I'll probably will never be, and to be honest I seriously doubt your statement that most on slashdot are libertarians.
Manuals are your last resort only
That I find that many GW skeptics do the former. That is to say they raise legitimate questions of the empirical data. They question the methods used, such as using computer models to "prove" things (a model doesn't prove anything), the data gathered, the understanding of the system and so on. They bring up extremely valid points. However the response always seems to be the same: They are shouted down. They are called stupid, or industry shills. Their arguments are dismissed out of hand. The existing data/models are presented as being right with little in the way of justification, and so on.
That's the problem. Many people act like they are all about science, and are open to questioning, but then when it happens, the reaction is vicious. Sorry, but you don't get to say "Any questioning of our position proves you are an idiot and thus we don't have to respond." I don't care if you don't like the questions posed, if they are legit then they deserve a legit answer.
From what I've seen, the skeptics do their best to present very well reasoned criticisms and questions of the accepted knowledge. The defenders are the ones that act unscientific and just shout the other side down.
The Intelligent Design thing is often brought up, as an attempt to shut down skeptics. They say "This is just like Intelligent Design and thus shouldn't be listened to!" Only it isn't. Intelligent Design makes a positive claim (that god created creatures as they are now) but the real problem is it makes an untestable one. Might be they are right, but you'll never prove it. Since according to them god is outside of nature that makes god untestable. Well if it's not testable, it's not science, pure and simple. However GW skeptics are just questioning a theory. Also, they aren't saying "No, your theory is wrong because god says so," they say "Your theory is wrong because of these reasons." That's science right there. Doesn't mean that the skeptics are right, but it does mean they are doing science as it is meant to be done.
Real science isn't about making a claim and then trying to shout down anyone who says you are wrong. Real science is about trying to prove yourself wrong. It is about trying to think up every way you can that your theory might be wrong and then testing those. Any alternative you can think of. Only when all those tests fail to prove it wrong, do you believe it is true. It's not a matter of trying to run one test and saying "There, I've proven it true!" and getting mad when people don't agree, it is trying to run as many tests as you can and then saying "There, I've tried every way I can to prove it false, and I just can't." Then if someone has a way you didn't think of, you try that too. You just keep on trying too, you keep working on the theory. No theory should ever be considered proven beyond the need for reinvestigation. All the time new areas of science open up that reveal that a long accepted theory was, in fact, an oversimplification. Doesn't mean it was a bad theory or didn't do a good job describing the facts, just that not everything was understood and now we have a better one.
So to me, it seems like it is the GW proponents putting their fingers in their ears. They don't want to hear any arguments and so any time someone makes one, they pretend like that person didn't and just shout them down.
Kool-aid is now being served in aisle 5.
Does it hurt to have a brain so soft that you can't think for yourself? Can your parents get a refund from the college they sent you to, because clearly, you learned nothing except trying to silence other viewpoints.
I'm an anthropogenic global warming skeptic... and even I'm begging: for pete's sake, can we please keep it out of any j-random article that just happens to mention the Sun, any aspect of the atmosphere or dog breathing rates?! I mean, come on, this is as bad as the old, "we have to have a PostgreSQL vs MySQL fight every time an article about Web site mentions MySQL in the fine print."
Just take a deep breath and try to have a conversation ABOUT THE SUN for once.
PS: The Daily Show is on my must-watch list. I don't watch it because it's news (I have Google News for that), I watch it for the same reason I watch Slashdot: to know what my peers find interesting these days, and get the occasional laugh.
Some aspects of being fit to survive extinction events seem to be being low on the food chain and being either aquatic of land-based depending on the circumstances. To me, fitness arguments are really about the competition between species. Those that are better adapted to their niche tend to do better, over time than those in a similar niche that are less well adapted. Erasing many niches over a timescale shorter than the adaptation timescale is not really about fitness.s -selling-solar.html
--
Adapt to 11 billion people before they are here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Actually, we affect ecology simply by existing. Fishing changes fish population patterns, man's spread to every corner of the Earth has caused a decline in certain species and a (relative) increase in others (check out the pigeon population of NYC, for instance). In that sense, environmentalists who say the only way to 'reverse the damage' is to 'remove man' are right, and in fact intellectually honest -- although their PR skills are questionable.
Indeed, the most ecological action would be to stop breathing. Major problem in the relative decrease/increase issue is the vanishing biodiversity. Organisms that are usually increasing are typically invading alien species, and the decreasing ones are local ones which can't compete. So the "increase" is not necessarily a good thing.
One of the best known debunked examples was Sagan's rapid-cooling scenarios ("nuclear winter"). The other problem is environmentalists refusal to see Earth's ecosystem as a evolving system, instead harking back to the past as a ideal that the future should aspire to. Ecosystems don't work that way! Millenia ago, most of Europe was an icy wasteland and the Sahara was an oasis. An observer then might decry the loss of the Sahara, but would they have predicted the advantages a temperate Europe would have brought?
Very much so. Earth's climate is extremely dynamic system. However, climate changes are normally slow and organisms have enough time to adapt. The situation is now different, however. Several ecosystems are already been pushed in a critical state due to human activity. Global warming may push them over the edge. In addition, there are over six billion people on the Earth. Hundreds of millions of people are in risks if the land where they live can no longer support them. In many parts of the world there is already an acute shortage of drinking water, and melting mountain glaciers will (not "may") make the situation much worse.
I should probably add that this does not mean that polluters are let off the hook. On health grounds alone, we already regulate most pollutants. As for CO2 emissions (which is what most global warming campaigners campaign for), I would suggest that the "the end is nigh" scenarios many campaigners paint is both scientifically inaccurate as well as damaging to their cause. Rather, they should encourage (through various methods like research grants and tax breaks) use of a basket of energy sources, including solar, wind and nuclear. Nuclear is crucial -- solar and wind are nice but large markets need reliable electricity sources.
Nuclear energy has its own problems, most notably the potential risks of radioactivity (which fortunately are often exaggerated) and the shortage of fuel. In my opinion, combining several renewable sources and developing more energy efficient tenchology is the answer. Nuclear may help in the short term.
I see that all your quotes are from Earth First! and their kin. Comparing all environmentalists to Earth First! is like comparing all Christians to Jerry Falwell or comparing all Muslims to Osama Bin Laden. Your argument is highly misleading.
Right wing and Left wing are esthetic and rhetorical positions, that have nothing to do with real policy. The extreme left or extreme right are virtually identitcal in how they intend to run government (they are both authoritarian), they just differ in the political justification for their power. Should we ban explicit rap music because it is an affront to God, or because it exploits women? Should be eliminate free speech, to make sure things don't offend our religion, or should we eliminate it to protect minority groups from being offended? Should we nationalize the economy to protect us from foriegn powers and terrorists, or to promote "equality".
The real battle is between Authoritarians (left and right), versus Minarchists (Libertarians, Anarchists, etc.). Chirac's ideology is consistant with the totalitarian ideology of the "Leftist" European political elite, even if he is "Right Wing".
I am constantly surprised at people who claim others are insane for worrying about environmental damage until something actually happens. How many ever doomsayers and shrieking drama queens the environmental movement attracts, you have to concede that human damage to the environment can have severe - and as in the example above, lethal - consequences to humans. It is not unreasonable to look at the possible sources for catastrophic events and eliminate them before those events occur.
For that matter, we see it as perfectly reasonable to do this in regards to terrorism; we curtail rights, increase security, reduce freedom of movement and increase privacy-invading scrutiny of citizens. We do this because "otherwise people might die". Why should the environmental issue be *any* different?
[Ego]out
The news, however, isn't about "viewpoint", or shouldn't be.
If you're a political commentary show, that's one thing. I wouldn't watch "The O'Reily Factor" or "Countdown with Keith Oberman" to get an unbiased reporting of the news, but really, your 9pm news broadcast shouldn't pander to a political agenda, even if the producers have mores based in that agenda.
It seems that nearly every news organization on the planet does so. Even the BBC is only telling you want they want you to hear.
So, is intelligent satire that lampoons BOTH sides, yet somehow manages to cover the news more clearly than most news outlets Kool-Aid? If it is, I'd rather be drinking that than the ditch-water folks like you seem to hold so highly. Face it, the news media has sold out to government and industry across the planet - and subscriptions are starting to feel it. Look at the viewer numbers for most national "news" programs! It's insanity, but with respect to news, the world culture has turned into the Jerry Springer show circa 1994.
That's the thing about predictions, they happen in the future. Since most of the predictions of the 'environmentalists' were not being made before the 1960's, and since the timeframes are usually 50 - 100 years out, it is not surprising that they have yet to be proven true or false. If you discount falling sperm counts in some men in industrial agriculture areas, rising rates of autism in American children and rising rates of leukemia, by ignoring the possible- but by no means proven- environmental component behind them. To claim any of these is proof of prior claims is inaccurate, to dismiss them as possible proof of prior claims is disingenuous. We are in the middle of things, and can't definitively say what they mean, or if they mean anything at all. As if to dismiss everything, you say there is no 'doomsday prediction' that's come true-but you don't admit any of the evidence unless it is positively uncontrovertable (which is not the way of law or science-which argue the meaning of evidence all the time), so what good is the conversation? Extremist wackos like the ones you quote are not representative of most environmentalists, anymore than a parade of right wing cranks who say equally demented stuff are representative of your views. (Unless I miss my guess and you are a devotee of Pat Robertson). So, you are left with rising rates of species extinction as the only proven, predicted environmental disaster that we know of. Still, it's pretty compelling if you think about it at all. Oh, yeah, and there's that ozone hole thing.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
3) Can anyone list a single doomsday environmental prediction that has come true? Just one. That's all I ask. One single doomsday prediction that has come true. (I guess THIS time they're right)
Dude, you woudn't be posting this if a doomsday prediction would have come true.
Don't mid me saying, but your argument is a little weak. The fact that something is unknown to have happened in the past doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future. There are new things happening all the time.
>but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.
It will be a cold day in July before I take that argument seriously.
The average temperature in July is much more reliably known than the small-scale noise of tomorrow's weather.
The climate in Saudi Arabia is a lot easier to predict than the weather.
The people who keep bringing weather forecasts into the discussion have known all their lives to plan for cold and snow in winter, rain in the spring, and sunlight in the summer. They're not actually confused about the difference between climate and weather.
>alarmist climatologists are batting at exactly 0%. Why should I believe them now?
Are you referring to the fact that the previous IPCC report was wrong about sea level increases? They *underestimated* them. Or are you pulling out the old line about a cooling scare in the 70s? Here's a bibliography of scientific literature on climate from the 1970s.
A reasoned discussion has to be based on facts, and it has to use reason.
Quick question to ask yourself: what new information, if it were to be discovered, would change your mind? If you can't think of any, you're not engaging in reason. A climatologist would say "well, if someone found a previously unknown negative feedback mechanism with a time constant such that it hasn't taken effect yet, then we'd all have to lower our temperature forecasts".
Other quick question: what do you think is the baseline temperature increase from a doubling of CO2? If you think it's less than 2 Celsius, on what facts do you base that assessment?
If you don't like proposed policy measures, the response of reason is to propose different ones (build fission plants? Roll with the punches?) instead of pretending the scientific data is a conspiracy by people you hate.
Quick question: have you ever known a working scientist? Political party members get promoted for going along. Scientists only get PhDs, promotions, and tenure from publishing _new_ information.
If it was an "incredibly stupid idea," why did the farmers stay there for several hundred years? It was a fine idea when the colony started, and it stayed a good idea right up until the climate changed and the weather got too cold for them to keep going. Then, the sensible ones left and the stubborn ones died.
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