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

What do you know

[TodMinuit]

So are temperatures. *ducks from thrown chair*

Re:What do you know

[biocute]

*ducks from thrown chair*

No need, this is Sun, not Microsoft.

Re:What do you know

[lord_mike]

Well, when Comedy Central is more reliable than your favorite "news" channel (**cough** FOX), what other choice do you have?

Thanks,

Mike

Re:What do you know

[FooAtWFU]

Okay. Thrown chairs aside, since this part of the discussion is oooobviously going to turn into a Global Warming flamefest, I'll just ask you to consider the following. There is a little political party out there called the Libertarians. In some ways - particularly with regards to economic policy - they're a lot like the Republicans, or at least the Republicans-before-Bush, only extra-more-so: free trade! free trade! small government! sometimes even no-government! privatize everything! fewer laws! fewer lawsuits! free speech! down with affirmative action! et cetera et cetera. In other ways, they're a lot like the Democrats - mostly with respect to some parts of social policy. Gay rights! Free love! Pro-choice! I won't enumerate all of this here, but I hope you get the idea. In some ways, they're sort of like the polar opposite of the Socialists. They usually lean a bit Ayn Rand.

I mention them because of all the possible groups out there, they're about the last that would think to jump on the global warming bandwagon. And yet, Reason Magazine (Free Minds and Free Markets!), the definitive Libertarian magazine, has at this point pretty much accepted: global warming exists, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to it, and a variety of things will Need To Be Done about it, one way or another, sooner or later. And I think this sort of thinking, coming from this group, should serve as sort of a bell-weather in politics. And I think that their approach to the topic is one that the Republican Party should strongly consider mimicking: stop squabbling about what is and isn't happening, and why. Worry instead about What Should Be Done.

Now, granted, their ideas of what Should Be Done and the state of things are not very much in line with what the Democratic Party would probably favor. They had a recent article entitled The Convenient Truth on the topic (and they lambast current global-warming politicans for "mistaking panic for virtue").

... This argues not for passivity, and not for delay, but for gradualism: setting up policies that will tighten the screws on greenhouse-gas emissions over the next few decades. The convenient truth about global warming, then, is that radicalism is as pointless as it is impractical. Slow-but-steady is not only the easiest approach; it is also the most effective.

Just as conveniently, the most efficient way to get started is also the simplest, albeit not the easiest politically: tax carbon emissions ... Fortuitously, a carbon tax could also reduce the U.S. budget deficit and the geopolitical leverage of sinister "petrocracies" such as Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. Policy prescriptions don't come any more convenient than that.

I would advise any right-leaning free-trade-ish pro-capitalist or Republican types to take a good long look at Reason's articles on the topic of global warming and, with all due consideration, study, and time, try to develop a healthy attitude about the reality of global warming. (As a matter of fact, I would advise any left-leaning types who are actually care about these issues for their own sake, and not merely for some sort of anti-capitalist or anti-Western-decadence agenda, to take a look at them as well, perhaps an even longer one.)

Re:What do you know

[TodMinuit]

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.)

Re:What do you know

[JobyKSU]

Oooh... mod down -5 for calling Fox a "news" channel, even in jest! I've hear less slanted coverage from the White House!

Re:What do you know

[interiot]

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."

Re:What do you know

[nmb3000]

Well what do you think caused the sun spots to peak?

Increased greenhouse gasses caused by human use of fossil fuels. Duh!

Why don't you neo-cons get with it and watch Al Gore's movie already. He proved this very thing.

Re:What do you know

[Jonny do good]

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.

Re:What do you know

[apostrophesemicolon]

Here's an explanation from NASA. In shorter version, how fast the sunspots cycle in and out of the Sun's surface determines how big they get.

So the article says that the sunspots have reached 1000-year peak, but the NASA article says that sunspots are at the minimum right now (Solar Minimum). Which one is correct?

Re:What do you know

[FooAtWFU]

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.

No, I said that "I would advise [people] to look at Reason's articles ... and, with all due consideration, study, and time, try to develop a healthy attitude about the reality of global warming." It is apparently obvious to you that basing your ideas about Science on political groups is Not Healthy. So, umm...

no, you shouldn't do that.

And I think a Healthy attitude is not particularly well served by breaking out the "omg Pope Middle Ages" comparisons on your opponents. There was a Slashdot article some time back about a study finding how political thought is essentially emotional, and not rational:

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged... Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want... Everyone... may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts.'"

I worry that this is the case here. You appear to appeal to the Scientific. If you do, indeed, value reason and logic, then I hope that you can quash the emotional reaction and see the reason in Reason's articles, and elsewhere, evaluating it on its own merits rather than how well it serves your biases.

...

On a related note, I wasn't able to tell: are you coming from more of a "pro-global-warming" angle or a "global-warming-is-fake" angle?

Re:What do you know

[Coryoth]

Do you really think that going against the group-think would win Libertarians any votes? Probably not, but then, looking at the LP platform and past performance, that never seems to have been an issue for them with regard to deciding policy in the past...

Re:What do you know

[sumdumass]

I think maybe you forgot a quote. One that really tells us what this is about.

French President Jacques Chirac and saluting Kyoto as a "genuine instrument of global governance,"

I orginialy saw it here

Re:What do you know

[LarsWestergren]

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.

Re:What do you know

[ArcherB]

I belive the GP was looking for a scientific rebuttal, a poltical rant is not a substitute for science. Sticking your fingers in your ears whilst cutting and pasting anti-science drivel will only result in your fingertips meeting in the middle.

Why would I place a scientific rebuttal to a political document? I mean, the friggin title of the damn thing is "Summary for Policy Makers". It is "Cliff note for the Corrupt". OK, here is a scientific rebuttal (from a scientist, not me)

Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators--and many scientists--seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature--a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.
--snip--
Moreover, actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat destruction in Southeast Asia. Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as corruption associated with permit trading. (Enron was a leading lobbyist for Kyoto because it had hoped to capitalize on emissions trading.) The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle--Al Gore's supposed mentor--is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate.

Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.

Yes, I know more cutting and pasting, this time, though, real science from a real scientists, not the anti-science drivel I posted before from honest to goodness environmentalists

By the way, rather than insulting me, have you been able to come up with a single environmental doomsday prediction that has come true? The way I see it, alarmist climatologists are batting at exactly 0%. Why should I believe them now?

Re:What do you know

[LarsWestergren]

Ok, this show has been promoted like wildfire on the net by conservatives and global warming deniers. Like with Michael Crichton, no matter how many times it is debunked, I see we will see this show quoted as truth for years to come and links to it get modded up....

Anyway, rebuttals: Carl Wunsch, one of the people on the show has since come out with a public letter where he explains that he was systematically misquoted and misrepresented, and has come out with a public letter:

"As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples,
it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one:
a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only
a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to
infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning
meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases
are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director
not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that
piece of disinformation.

An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context:
I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more
carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse
gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It
was used in the film, through its context, to imply
that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that
therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which
are literally what I said, comes close to fraud."

When a couple of noted British scientists tried to engage him in debate about some issues in the show, he answered "You are a big daft cock." and "Go and fuck yourself" (respectively). Channel 4 themselves now say the show is basically polemic. Of course, as a modern TV channel they don't care for a second about science or truth, they care about generating controversy so they get more viewers.

And then we have some people who go into the claims of the show a little bit more in depth here, and here, and here and finally here.

Re:What do you know

[LarsWestergren]

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.

Re:What do you know

[LarsWestergren]

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....

Re:What do you know

[andersa]

Both are correct.

Were are at the low point of the 11-year sunspot cycle.

The 1000-year peak is measured over the average of the last 11 years, so the fast cycle is evened out.

Re:What do you know

[Jump]

Both articles talk about different time scales. The sun spot rate is going from minimum to maximum in only 11 years (not sure about the correct time scale but should be approximately right). Just last year, the Sun hit the minimum and for the first time a gigantic explosion with a shockwave running all around the Sun was observed. While the Sun Spot number goes through this cycle, the solar magnetic field is reversed. This is critical for the solar wind which helps to protect earth from the cosmic radiation. Same is true for the magnetic field of the earth. And Earth's magnetic field is also reversing now! Why? The interplay between the solar magnetic field and the Earth's magnetic field is not known.

The NASA article talks about this minimum, and the science article talks about the average Sun spot number increasing over the last 1000 years. This is surely interesting, as it explains quite a lot of the global warming. The astronomical influence on the weather system should be studied in more detail. For example, it is believed by some scientists, that the Sun's orbit around the Galaxy is causing Ice Ages as well. At the moment, this is all far fetched, but if we do not understand it better, we will never know for sure what is causing how much of the observed global warming.

Re:What do you know

[bheer]

> 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.

Re:What do you know

[Alioth]

but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

I can't take any text seriously that uses this old chestnut - totally ignoring that meterology and climatology are _not_ the same thing.

An analogy: take a pan of water, and put it on a gas stove. The meterologist's job is to predict where convections will occur at some time (a few seconds) in the future. In this chaotic system, it becomes harder and harder to predict the exact position and strength of individual convections on a period greater than a few seconds. The climatologists job, on the other hand, is to say if you turn up the heat by 50%, the water will boil in X minutes, and if you also cover the pan with a lid, the water will boil in Y minutes (were Y X). The climatologist can predict this with a fairly good degree of accuracy, given that he knows how much extra energy turning up the heat puts into the water (analagous to the sun warming up), and how much energy the lid traps (analagous to greenhouse gases).

It does not follow that climatologists are wrong, just because a meterologist can not tell you with much confidence whether it will be raining at 11:30 two weeks on Tuesday. Climatology and meterology are two different disciplines, and anyone who's argument includes the old saw about "climatologists can hardly be right if they can't tell me the weather at 11:30am two weeks on Tuesday" is almost certainly making an extremely dubious argument to begin with.

Re:What do you know

[FatMullet]

Here's one of Linzden's recent peer review papers

Lindzen, R.S. (2003) The Interaction of Waves and Convection in the Tropics. J. Atmos. Sci., 60, 3009-3020

There are quite a few others in the past twenty years. I'm no great fan of Linzden myself but there's no denying that he has contributed quite a lot to the literature on climate science.

Re:What do you know

[slashdotmsiriv]

Lindsen has published peer-reviewed papers the last 20 years. Even if he did not, just the fact that he is an enviromental science
professor at MIT is enough to give his positions scientific credibility.
And he is not alone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6IPHmJWmDk...relat ed&search=

Re:What do you know

[Nulukkhizdin]

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.

Re:What do you know

[hey!]

2) 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?

Well, according to a study from the University of BC:

        * A 40% drop in violent conflict.
        * An 80% drop in the most deadly conflicts.
        * An 80% drop in genocide and politicide.

The problem with your line of reasoning is that it's based on faulty assumption: that bad things didn't happen before the UN existed.

If you want to be cynical about the UN, the cynical position is not that it is a form of world government; the cynical position is that it is a mechanism for powerful nations to impose their will on less powerful nations by somewhat less expensive and barbarous means. Why else would a world government need a "security council", which is just a nice way of saying "the countries that are too powerful to be restrained."

In any case, what you are doing here is called "poisoning the well": arguing points that are irrelevant to the question at hand to convince people to use emotion to reject an argument because it is believed by somebody they don't like.

With respect to the "doomsday" scenarios, the problem with many of these scenarios is that they ignore the power of wealth to evade negative consequences. The human capacity to adapt is also important, but it's easier to dismiss warnings about overpopulation living in a first world country, than living in a third world country which many of the people are food insecure.

Another serious negative scenario that is repeated over and over is the disruptive effects of exotic organisms. A special case of this also touches on the population issue: the problem of emergent diseases. There are several root causes to this problem, including people driven by overpopulation to move to areas previously considered uninhabitable, and people engaging in ecologically unhygienic practices. The problem is amplified by dense human populations, which provide a rich growth medium for the infectious agent and evolutionarily favors virulent agents like the 1918 flu. Recent examples include Ebola, West Nil Virus, SARS, and bird flu.

Lyme disease is an interesting example. It is prevalent in the northeast US because the decline of agriculture has resulted in a gradual reforesting of the region. In general, this is a good thing. However when animals like small rodents and deer returned, there was no wolf to predate upon them, and their populations exploded. Instead they are predated upon by ticks, in turn ticks are predated upon by Lyme disease. A friend of mine married into a family that owns an island which is large enough to support a population of deer as well as small rodents. They've all had Lyme disease. Now the western coyote has moved into New England, and has reached the island, destroying the deer population and cutting down the rodent population. You can visit now for week and never see a single tick. As coyotes move in, and fisher cats return to their old ranges, predation is returning the system to a healthy balance. I'll bet if this is allowed to continue, Lyme disease may become much more rare.

The focus on doomsday issues is misplaced. Humans are adaptable to practically any conditions from the African veldt to arctic tundra. The real issue is that if human populations are allowed to grow to the point where it is in equilibrium with the environment's ability to support them, then the people who are near the margins where that equilibrium deducts from the population are going to live miserable lives. This is not speculative, it's already happening, only in places far from us. We, who live far from the hard edge of ecological reality, won't ever experience these problems as doomsday problems, but as disorders, either of the body (emergent diseases), or of society (war and terror).

Re:What do you know

[RexRhino]

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".

Re:What do you know

[LordPhantom]

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.

What happened 1000 years ago?

[biocute]

So what happened around 1000 A.D.? How did people then manage a similar peak?

Re:What happened 1000 years ago?

[techno-vampire]

This was at about the middle of the Early Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings had a colony on the west coast of Greenland, supporting itself as dairy farmers. I specify the west coast because, although the Gulf Stream reaches Greenland, it goes up the east coast, and wasn't a factor. I might add, that with all the foofrah about how hot it's getting, we still don't have dairy farms there.

Re:What happened 1000 years ago?

[Vintermann]

Read up on your Jared Diamond. Yes, they had dairy farms there. That was an incredibly stupid idea, even then. They died out.

That doesn't debunk global warming

[LordKazan]

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.

Re:That doesn't debunk global warming

[DoofusOfDeath]

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

Oh please... you expect us to believe that humans cause sunspots???

Re:That doesn't debunk global warming

[LordKazan]

You need to learn two things
1) Reading Comprehension
2) Manners

Re:That doesn't debunk global warming

[flyingfsck]

Uhh, you are all correct. Volcanoes tend to either cool or warm the earth. For example Mount Pinatuba cooled the earth by 3 degrees over a multi year period.

See this: http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/cli mate_effects.html
"The amount of sulfur-rich gases appears to be more important. Sulfur combines with water vapor in the stratosphere to form dense clouds of tiny sulfuric acid droplets. These droplets take several years to settle out and they are capable to decreasing the troposphere temperatures because they absorb solar radiation and scatter it back to space."

Scary?

[GFree]

I've heard that missiles can be guided to a target through GPS. Could the noise generated from massive sunspot activity cause the missile to drift enough to hit a completely different target even though it THINKS it's on target?

In other words, could the noise corrupt the GPS signal and offset the readings (but still be understood by the missile), or would it mess-up the system up completely to become totally incomprehensible?

1000 peak?

[JobyKSU]

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?

Climate

[Sean0michael]

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.

I think the last thing most /.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.

Just a thought.

Re:Climate

[TuballoyThunder]

I'm sorry, the cause of global warming has been decided and further research is not needed. Please turn off the lights when leaving the hall of scientific inquiry.

In all seriousness, when I was working on my M.S. in Astronomy (circa 1993), we had a seminar given by solar physicist on sunspots. She showed two slides that were quite interesting: The first slide showed a plot of "global average" CO2 concentration and "global average" temperature and the second slide showed sunspot activity and "global average" temperature. From her brief look into the topic (by her own admission), sunspot activity appeared to correlate better than CO2. She submitted a NSF proposal to study it further and was rejected on the grounds "the cause of global warming is well understood and further research is not warranted.'

Re:Climate

[CaffeineJedi]

From her brief look into the topic (by her own admission), sunspot activity appeared to correlate better than CO2. She submitted a NSF proposal to study it further and was rejected on the grounds "the cause of global warming is well understood and further research is not warranted.'

This is an excellent comment. I received my B.S. degree in physics and have seen a great deal of legitimate data against humans as the predominant cause for global climate change. Much of the data is refuted by department chairs or the most zealous members of the physics department. Why? You ask. Because those people are the best at delivering funding. Physics, like many other scientific (read: non-engineering) fields, requires a great deal of government funding for research. Those that often receive funding are good at politics, both within the department and outside. Very much like CEOs are often the best at delivering sales or profits, without being the most expert on a subject.

To dispense with my ad-hominem argument, I would suggest any interested party to look into Milankovitch cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles.

These cycles show how small oscillations in some of the Earth's angular parameters impact radiation and hence temperature.
The chain of events is very clear: 1) astronomical variations -> 2) temperature change. Furthermore, the data from the insolation parameter correlates very well with the ice core data used as a CO2 proxy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok_420ky_4c urves_insolation.jpg.

The scientific community generally regards Milankovitch cycles as being in large part responsible for non-industrial era warming. Yet, when it comes to industrial era warming, proponents of human-caused global climate change say that CO2 emissions are driving temperature. This is a logical departure from the previous theory because it readjusts causality.

If from that above graph you believe that in ancient eras radiation drove temperature which drives CO2, then why the switch? Am I to believe that somehow in the modern era CO2 drives temperature which drives solar radiation levels incident at the Earth?

The sun is a massive fusion reactor 330,000 times the mass of earth. Even small fluctuations matter.

Re:Climate

[LarsWestergren]

The scientific community generally regards Milankovitch cycles as being in large part responsible for non-industrial era warming. Yet, when it comes to industrial era warming, proponents of human-caused global climate change say that CO2 emissions are driving temperature. This is a logical departure from the previous theory because it readjusts causality.

Actually, a lot of climate scientists do tackle the questions of solar and orbital cycles effecting, and temperature causing CO2 emissions at the start of historical warming cycles rather than the other way around.

With regards to the lady in question from the original poster, I agree with the AC. Could we have a name to verify the claim? Does she still claim this more than 10 years later? If so, resubmit. There is an enormous amount of scientific research being done in this area, and there are organizations willing to fund research debunking global warming (mainly in the petrolium industry)... I don't mean this as a smear, honestly, I am serious. No matter where the funding is coming from, if the research is sound and stands up to scrutiny it would make her world famous. It would also be a big relief for me actually, it would remove a great cause of worry for me.

Author Mistates & Fails to Explain Well

[BoRegardless]

The Sun has a DIRECT influence on global climate, yet the author says "indirect influence", and this is not disputed by ANY scientist.

The relationships between where Beryllium comes from, the solar wind strength, number of sunspots and cosmic rays is not explained in a coherent manner with simple statements that could be made.

The number of sunspots has been near constant (on average) over the past 20 years, yet they are at the highest level in over 1000 years for the last 60 years "yet the average temperature of the earth has continued to increase". This shows the author doesn't understand lag times between applying extra energy input to the atmospheric system versus the time required for the large mass of the Earth's ecosystem to respond by warming land, sea and air to the point where average temperature changes can be measured.

These sort of incomplete descriptions give the average reader a bad view of what is really going on. It gives journalism a bad name.

Re:Before the smarmy comments start

[baseinfinity]

And if you read your own link, you'd also see: "Since sunspots are dark it might be expected that more sunspots lead to less solar radiation. However, the surrounding areas are brighter and the overall effect is that more sunspots means a brighter sun. The variation is very small (of the order of 0.1%)."

Re:Global warming on Mars, also?

[syphax]

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.

Re:What do you know - spotty...

[flyingfsck]

The Sun God is in puberty and eat too many chocolate bunnies and eggs at Easter?

Re:Sssshh!

[ranton]

Sun spots are *cool* parts of the sun. If the sun is at a 1,000 year peak of sunspot activity, that means that it is at a 1,000 year *low* for temperature, as far as sunspots are concerned.
So if there is global warming, then this argues *against* the sun as an explanation.

That is a common misconception. Direct satellite measurements of irradiance have shown that solar irradiance increases as the number of sunspots increase.

According to current theory, sunspots occur in pairs as magnetic disturbances in the convective plasma come close to the surface of the Sun. Magnetic field lines emerge from one sunspot and re enter at the other spot. Also, there are more sunspots during periods of increased magnetic activity. At that time more highly charged particles are emitted from the solar surface, and the Sun emits more UV and visible radiation.

It is most likely that the sunspots do not cause more radiation, but they instead are caused by the same events that cause the Sun to emit more radiation.

Regardless of what happens, it is clear that increased sun spot activity increases the radiation and therefore the heat that is transferred to the Earth from the Sun.

--

1000 years ago

[arcite]

We had the middle ages. Europe was warmer, you could grow wine in regions you can't now. The middle East was a trading empire, Vikings were on the march, some Christians were planning the crusades. All things considered, you would probably be a poor peasant, half starving, and about to drop dead from plague or some other ailment at the ripe age of 30.

Re:1000 years ago

[the-amazing-blob]

But your favorite phrases would still be "I'm not dead yet!" and "I don't want to go on the cart!"

Re:1000 years ago

[orangepeel]

Europe was warmer, you could grow wine in regions you can't now. The middle East was a trading empire, Vikings were on the march, some Christians were planning the crusades. All things considered, you would probably be a poor peasant, half starving, and about to drop dead from plague or some other ailment at the ripe age of 30.

Wait ... so ... what exactly is the difference between 1000 years ago and today? Oh right ... we've got Slashdot! Go us! ;-)

Re:Keep in mind Indep Search:

[BoRegardless]

Beryllium in ice cores: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1997/97JC01265.sh tml

"The most dramatic is a 10Be peak ?40,000 years ago, similar to that found in the Vostok ice core, thus permitting a very precise correlation between climate records from Arctic and Antarctic ice cores."

There is a lot of scientific data and the summary article (as poor as it was) did not even start to touch on the breadth of what is currently known from the analyses.

With all due respect, Mr. Smarty Pants...

[ChePibe]

This is Slashdot.

People don't read links or articles here.

You must be too good for this here place. Why don't you run down to some fancy website where you'd feel more welcome.

Damn kids. Come here and start reading links and articles. No respect for tradition. No honor. All he had to do was post a pithy comment and get his +5 insightful, but noooo... he had to read the article.

Why can't you just be like the rest of us, and argue past each other without doing any research while stubbornly holding your own ground, peppering your posts with links you know the other side won't read? Geez...

Trust the scientists...

[quokkapox]

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?

I am not a paleo-climatologist, but I think we can safely assume that the scientists who are analyzing ice cores are taking these sorts of things into account. Much like a sysadmin reading a log file or processing tcpdump output looking for evidence of hacking, you can safely assume that yeah, the experts did think of that.

When you have expertise in a particular field you tend to become better at perceiving patterns in the data sets you have. The open source 'many eyes' rule of thumb comes into play here, too.

Thus I think we can assume the PhDs in this field would notice an anomaly indicating that their data set may be corrupted, just like I could analyze a suspicious HTTP traffic log file, profile the activity from a specific IP address, correlate it with other sources of information, and make reasonable hypotheses as to what actually was going on, whether the activity was a bot or a human, etc. Or even whether the activity was a human trying to disguise itself as a bot (or vice-versa). And I don't even have a PhD, I just have a decade or so of experience.

Right now is a minimum

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I regularly observe sunspots. I've hardly seen a sunspot for months. We're actually at solar minimum right now. Of course tha article is about a long term average, but the timing of the article is a bit peculiar!

The article says:

> Over the past 20 years, however, the number of sunspots has remained roughly constant

This is a weird statement. In last 20 years we've had two solar cycles and the number of sunspots has varied dramatically over the period as it usually does. You could interpret this statement as saying that relative to the cyclic average the number has remained constant - but that's certainly not how it reads, and 20 years is a bit of a short time over which to make such a judgement.

Re:To all you people

[CustomDesigned]

I ride my bicycle 6.85 miles to work every day (or telecommute for snow and ice). I keep the thermostat at 65 in the winter. I make my kids walk to school, even in the rain. We eat vegetarian with occasional chicken/turkey. I use fluorescent lights when they are on much of the day (and incandescent when on for a few minutes at a time).

Nevertheless, IMO the global warming alarmism being used to push a neo-communist agenda stinks. I've looked at the evidence, and humans as *the major* contributor just doesn't add up. I'm not convinced by "all the real scientists say so" either. There is too much censoring of dissenters for that to be convincing.

In many cases, the cures exacerbate real problems. For instance, demand for ethanol is causing more rain forest clear cutting to grow sugar cane. Paving large areas causes local warming (urban heat island effect) far in excess of the worst case estimates of global warming, and loses even more ability to recycle CO2 in the air. Eating beef/pork for breakfast, lunch, and dinner has causes a 10 fold increase in methane, much more that the increase in CO2. All the driving causes stress, and the fatty, sugary fast food combined with the lack of exercise has made most of us fat, driving up health care costs.

My point is that I would like to see a positive agenda. Keep and expand greenspaces and forests. I'm not a stickler for "everything wild" like Gore - parks are fine. Walk, ride bikes, use mass transit. Rent a car for vacations. Use a ZipCar for trips to the store to pick up heavy items. Eat meat only on feast days (e.g. Sunday - modify for your religion), like we used to, and observe a Sabbath (on a day appropriate for your religion). Getting rid of my car saves $300 to $800 dollars a month (depending on how nice a used car I would have gotten to replace it). I have a ready excuse why I can't jump up and drive all over the county on a moments notice. Stop the rushing around. Relax, enjoy your food instead of wolfing it down in a hurry. Eat slowly. Eat less. Fast on a regular basis - if only so you know what it feels like to be hungry. Eat only when you are hungry, not when you are bored, or pressured by friends.

Use our own oil (offshore drilling, Alaska, and/or plant it instead of corn for the cows you aren't eating as much of) instead of buying it from our enemies and carting it over the ocean. Save the oil for the truckers so your fresh veggies won't cost an arm and a leg. The trees will slowly take care of the CO2 if we don't cut them down and pave them over. Whatever you do, don't give control to the government to "fix" things. They will only make it worse. Sufficiently large corporations are indistinguishable from government in their capacity to foul things up.

Take these suggestions slowly so the affected industries have time to adjust.

Hypocrisy

[Seoulstriker]

On the other hand, that show is full of shit.

Using a biased source to purport another source to be biased is pretty hypocritical.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Even the worst case scenarios aren't exactly that catastrophic, at least not for us in the 1st world, and will be, if anything, just a minor inconvience.

Are you fucking stupid? Have you heard of the Stern report? 20% shrinkage of the world economy a 'minor inconvenience?

That's not even a worst case scenario.

Labeling

[SuperKendall]

Good for you, personally I don't like to label myself, refer to my sig for more info.

"And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd."

But you like to label other people by defining anything you dislike as a "cage", and then throwing others into it arbitrarily based on a catchy song lyric.

Being libertarian is not a label, it is a general approach to analyisis and a certain core set of priorities, one deeper than most song lyrics or bumper stickers. I don't think you can ever apply the word "label" to a system of beliefs wide enough for members within that space to disagree on things (as Libertarians do).

I, too, am a Libertarian - as is most of slashdot really.

The problem is

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:The problem is

[rlthomps-1]

Sorry your friends are getting shouted down, maybe if they had some data to prove their criticisms, they'd be more likely to be heard?

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.

We use data models for all sorts of shit, for example, 'proving' that the design of the aircraft you're flying in won't crash and burn on takeoff, or like better understanding the conditions that form tornados and any number of things. Apparently you'll trust your life with data models, but when it comes to global warming, they're suddenly useless. Granted, it's completely valid to examine a particular model and critcise the flaws that is has, but that's not what you're doing, you're implying that categorically, they're not useful in understanding climate data, and that's plain wrong

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 how close to 100% of all possible knowledge and accuracy of the chemical mechanism of black powder and projectile physics do you need the scientific community to have before you'll duck when someone fires a gun at you?

Re:The problem is

[WhiplashII]

We use data models for all sorts of shit, for example, 'proving' that the design of the aircraft you're flying in won't crash

Interesting that you would say this. Models are indeed used when designing aircraft. But any prediction made by the model is not trusted if the model predicts deviation from normal behaviour - for that, we have to use wind tunnels and models.

That is the problem here. You cannot create a model which predicts a deviation in behaviour and then use that as proof. You use the model to make a prediction, and then you compare the prediction to reality. Then you have proof.

Many aspects of Global Warming have followed this procedure. The "doomsday" projections have not. That is why most people don't argue the existence of Global Warming, they argue the necessity of doing anything about a 1 degree change over a decade...

monitored on the Sun since 1610

[bl8n8r]

"Sunspots have been monitored on the Sun since 1610, shortly after the invention of the telescope."

Which were soon follwed by cries of "GAAAHHH!!! I'm blind!!!"

Environmental doomsday predictions..

[Savage-Rabbit]

"By the way, rather than insulting me, have you been able to come up with a single environmental doomsday prediction that has come true?" The fact that I never claimed I could is probably as meaningless to you as any other fact that does not fit your dogma. I'm not saying that logic has anything to do with your rant, but it would seem a tad nonsensical to ask someone to point to a doomsday prediction that has already come to pass. Some doomsday highlights of the last 500 million years, courtesy of Wikipedia:

1. The Cambrian-Ordovician extinction events.
   
2. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction events.
   
3. The Late Devonian extinctions.
   
4. The Permian-Triassic extinction event.
   
5. The Triassic-Jurassic extinction event.
   
6. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event.
   

None of these environmental doomsday events were predicted for obvious reasons but at least they go to show that environmental doomsday events are survivable if you are fit enough. As for future prospects for prediction, so far we haven't done well have we? We were already in the several thousand years into the ongoing Holocene extinction event before we even figured out it was happening but at least we have managed to figure out since then that this time around we are a major contributing factor to the extinctions.