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"All Quiet Alert" Issued For the Sun
radioweather writes "The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, and maybe it is, but the sun is extremely quiet right now, so much in fact that the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium issued an unusual 'All quiet alert' on October 5th. Since then the sunspot number has remained at zero — solar cycle 24 has not yet started. There are signs that the sun's activity is slowing. The solar wind has been decreasing in speed, and this is yet another indicator of a slowing in the sun's magnetic dynamo. There is talk of an extended solar minimum occurring. There are a number of theories and a couple of dozen predictions about the intensity solar cycle 24 which has yet to start. One paper by Penn & Livingstonin in 2006 concludes: 'If [trends] continue to decrease at the current rate then the number of sunspots in the next solar cycle (cycle 24) would be reduced by roughly half, and there would be very few sunspots visible on the disk during cycle 25.' We'll know more in about six months what the sun decides to do for cycle 24."
Here is a nice graph that shows sunspot data from 1620 to 2000
http://spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
We can see that this isn't anything new.
BTW - If you are interested in Auroras, keep watch on the 18th-19th. We are about to get hit with a solar wind stream.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
The number of sunspots hits a minimum as the globe warms up. Denials at 11.
Obviously this is due to global warming on Earth caused by humans.
Fusion has just finished its 6 sigma training after 5 billion of years. Which is good time considering that it was only hydrogen taking the training.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And get Al Gore on the phone, now!
We must take immediate and drastic steps to fight Global Darkening!
Maybe we can get that Kim Stanley Robinson person to write a book? 70 Days of Night?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I see you, and several others in the comments, making connections to sunspots and global warming. There really isn't one, or rather, it's the opposite of what you'd think. The more sunspots the sun has, the hotter it gets. Indeed a prolonged period of low sunspot activity is one of the (unproven, competing) theories on what caused the Little Ice Age.
So, if you want to draw a conclusion on this, if the sunspots are low, and the earth is still getting hotter... that means we really are getting hotter (disclaimer: sunspot numbers go up and down all the time in regular cycles. Global Warming is a very long term trend that is going up over several sunspot cycles. You can't really draw a conclusion on global warming based on a short term sunspot activity. I'm just saying, if you really wanted to draw one, that'd be it).
Is this a GOOD thing or a BAD thing? Inquiring minds want to know.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Can someone explain what this means to us in laymans terms? I'm just a software geek. I know nothing of this "sun" you speak of.
No, I am drawing a link between the article and humor. Try and keep up.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The sun is going to burn out and I never even got to post a "first" post on Slashdot. I'm going to die cold and unfulfilled! (Not by sharks with lasers thank god. That's a plus.)
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
In this case, you can.
Notice any kind of pattern here?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
We think of sunspots as following a fixed, 11-year cycle, but this may only be one part of the story.
I don't think the 'experts' necessarily know anything more at this point, either; just a few years ago, NASA was predicting that the next cycle would be the strongest ever, and that got a lot of people (especially folks that do a lot of shortwave/HF radio) very excited. Now, it looks like we may have a very small cycle, or no cycle at all -- it's anybody's guess.
The dead spot on some sunspot charts from 1650-1700 is called the "Maunder Minimum". During that period, rather than talking about sunspots, observers of the day would write about the appearance of a particular sunspot (very much singular!). Unfortunately, the data prior to the beginning of the minimum is pretty sparse, and exactly when it started is under some dispute.
There was also another minimum in the early 19th century, called the Dalton Minimum, although it wasn't as severe and it only lasted about 25 years.
So that's two minima separated by a 150-year gap. But at 150 years after the 1800 minimum, rather than another minimum, we actually get a maximum in 1950. There's just not enough historical data to make a good prediction, because we don't know how complex the cycle is. But it's clearly more complex than just 11 years.
I can't find a link to it online, but I heard a talk recently about a group that was using geological evidence to try and track the sunspot cycle further back than we have human observations. Not sure quite what the method is, or if it's yielded any results. But that would certainly be interesting, if you could get some real historical perspective instead of the piddling 7 centuries (at most) that you can find written records of. That might give us some idea of what's been going on, on very long timescales, as well as perhaps filling in the gaps in the historical record in more recent times (not sure what kind of resolution you can get).
To use a water analogy, the 11-year cycles might be waves lapping at the shore, but there might be scores of other forces acting on them at higher levels, like tides, wind, and the seasons, all on vastly different time-scales.
All in all, for something that we spend the majority of our waking lives under, our understanding of the sun is surprisingly poor. Particularly given how much modern technology (radio communications is the obvious one, but there are others) can be affected by the solar cycle, it seems to be ignored until it does something unexpected.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
HOLY CRAPOLA I think you've got a reasonable solution to the global warming problem!!!! Mars is too cool for humans, and Earth is starting to get too hot. So, let's send SUV/Factory Emission worshiping Republicans to Mars to warm that planet while we keep all the intelligent people here on earth to relive the dark ages of human history without incandescent bulbs and 18 wheeler trucks. It's brilliant I tell ya! We simultaneously solve the religious war of Global Warming while ridding Earth of Rush Limbaugh fans!
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Given that the Sun is itself a large ball of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace in which hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees, and on the surface of which flares and eruptions with the energy of millions of times the entire nuclear arsenal of the planet Earth go off more or less daily, I'd say it's a pretty damn noisy place all the time.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Bollocks !
For the first 18 years of my life, I never went into a pub.
The next 20 years of my life I was in there every weekend, for 3 days.
Am I in the pub now ? Please, enlighten me. And bear in mind that the sun has a lot longer life cycle than me. (and I have access to the net anywhere due to 3G telephony).
You Called?
Now everybody listen carefully: GTFO my internet.
Sunspots are local areas of cooling on the solar surface. However, a less immediately obvious but highly significant factor is that the area around sunspots is warmer than the natural solar temperature. The net result is an increase in total solar output during times of high sunspot activity. Thus there is a positive correlation between sunspot activity and the energy which is delivered to earth. I'm lazy and can't immediately find a better reference than the relevant Wikipedia page, but I'm sure someone with more diligence could dig up something better.
I know you're joking, but there really IS a "Global Darkening" phenomenon, at least according to THIS episode of NOVA.
"Mars has increased at the same rate as Earth for the last three or four years."
completly ignoring some facts:
The sun has been experiencing a cooling trend over the last 14 or so years.
Mars is farther away from the sun then earth, and as such isn't impacted by the sun as much. This means mars should not be warming at the same rate in fact, I believe it should be at about 1/4 the impact.
Ignores Mars's dust storm cycle.
Ignores the thinner atmosphere of mars.
This data is data that is cherry picked out of a meta-analysis of data. While meta analysis has it's purpose, it can be filled with artifacts.
The problem points to the fact that we have released millions of years of carbon in a short 100 years.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't anthropomorphize climate change either. It really hates that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"what the sun decides to do "
Please stop anthromorphising astonomical bodies. It just makes them angry.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Given that you say 18 years, not (for example) 21, and are on an English language website gives a good chance that you are British (there are plenty of other options, but it's a pretty good guess). Given that your username is "smoker2", there is a good chance you smoke. Since smoking is banned in British pubs, I am going to guess that you are *not* in the pub right now - you may, however, be sitting outside it.
The more sunspots the sun has, the hotter it gets.
Sorry, but we have a consensus of scientists to prove that the sun has NO effect on the Earths temperature. If the sun went cold overnight, the Earth would still be heating up due to global warming. The ONLY thing that affecting the Earths temperature is human activity. You need to keep up with Algore's speeches.
I offer a third mode of existence for your soul after your body's death:
Cheeseballs.
Fucking Cheeseballs.
This message brought to you by the PAST: People Against Stupid Thoughts.
Hmm?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
And in the last 10 years that's started to reverse.
(This time with a working link.)
Program Intellivision!
Global Darkening is actually a moderate problem, though it's actually caused by particulate pollutants in the atmosphere, not sunspots. The amount of light energy reaching the Earth over the last hundred years has been dropping slowly, until recently, when it started going up again -- as dirty pollution has been regulated and replaced with "cleaner" CO2 pollution.
There's a lot of concern among climatologists that global darkening has been masking the effects of global warming, and that as solar radiation on the surface goes up again, the effects of global warming might come upon us more severely and faster than our previous estimates.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Sunspots are areas of intense magnetic field concentration that suppress local convection in the area, and are thus are relatively cooler and darker than the surrounding area.
...).
Sunspots correspond to the amount of magnetic activity, which is the major driving force behind activity (flares, CMEs, filament eruptions,
(I work in the field)
- The "talk" of a near-future Ice Age was from a few scientists and was not supported by the mainstream. Just like the "talk" today that there's no anthropogenic global warming.
- The most recent sunspot minimum (2005) coincided with the hottest year ever recorded for our planet! (Or second-hottest, depending on which set of numbers you use. Also, just to head you off at the pass, note that I mentioned the planet and not just the United States.)
- There is more than just "talk" of the ice caps melting. We just surpassed the previous minimum Arctic sea-ice records by more than 20%!! (Meanwhile, while the Antarctic sea-ice area reached a maximum, the total mass continues to decline.)
Of course, you probably know all this already. If not, and you'd like links for any of this, let me know.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Q: How many days between this all-quiet alert and Sun changing its ticker symbol to JAVA?
A: 42!
It cannot be a coincidence that this magical number popped up here as well. The Sun needs some time to find itself before it decides what to do for the next quart^H^H^H^H^H solar cycle.
Lighten up, Francis.
I had a look earlier, and I could see plenty of spots.
As I understand a recent theory:
- Sunspots are associated with increased solar wind and coronal mass ejections,
- This improves the magnetic/plasma shielding of the earth from cosmic rays,
- Which reduces the nucleation of water droplets,
- Which reduces cloud cover,
- Which reduces reflection of sunlight,
and this reflection of sunlight totally swamps the minor change in the solar radiant output.
When the sun goes through a prolonged period of no sunspots the result is enough of an increase in reflection of sunlight to significantly drop the Earth's temperature.
If you compare the graph of sunspot numbers linked from the great-great-great-grandparent post to the wikipedia article on the "Little Ice Age" you'll see that the sunspots-went-away period from about 1650 to 1700 corresponds to the first - and drastically deepest - temperature drop. MAJOR global cooling - the temperature crash at the end of the medieval warm period which we've just recovered from.
Seems to me an "All Quiet Alert" is appropriate. This could be the start of some significant global cooling.
And that could be a problem. According to the orbit-based climate forcing models the peak of the last interglacial corresponded to the start of agriculture, and temperature should have begun a gradual but accelerating descent into the next ice age, which should have been moderately steep by now. Instead it pretty much leveled out (ignoring "minor" bumps like the two I just named and the recent upslope). If fossil-fuel greenhouse gasses are indeed holding back a downhill slide we could be in pretty sad shape in about four more centuries, when the fossil carbon runs out. And once that snow persists into summer it does a darned good job of reflecting sunlight, too.
Meanwhile, if we're going into a cold period and at the same time are cutting our carbon emissions in order to "stave off global warming" - with a resulting drastic hit on the economy - we could generate the scenario Niven and Pournelle described in _Angels Down_.
Bummer!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm assuming when you state that the 'sun is closer during the winter' that you're talking about Earth's orbital eccentricity (non-circular orbit) resulting in the entire planet being about 5 million kilometres closer to the sun during winter. Living in the northern or southern hemisphere would make no difference.
If however you're talking about Earth's rotatational axis then you might want to look at your facts again. Earth axial tilt is ~23degrees which during summer means the North pole is tilted towards the sun, resulting in the northern hemisphere being (on average) closer to the sun.
Wish there was a -1 slightly-wrong tag. Some posts just deserve it. [/joke - but you did ask for it!]
As an aside, just thought I'd mention that the eccentricity results in Earth being about 2 degrees cooler during perihelion (closest point during orbit).
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
A little less scary if you will.In any case, during reversal the magnetic field does not go away, it only gets weaker and develops several more magnetic poles, at unpredictable locations.
You might want to rephrase that or look at the facts again.
I'm assuming when you state that the 'sun is closer during the winter' that you're talking about Earth's orbital eccentricity (non-circular orbit) resulting in the entire planet being about 5 million kilometres closer to the sun during winter. Living in the northern or southern hemisphere would make no difference.
It makes all the difference in (either half of) the world!
To be absolutely clear. The perhelion currently occurs around the begining of January. In the nothern hemisphere January is in winter, whereas in the southern hemisphere January is in summer. The Aphelion occurs around the begining of July. In the southern hemisphere July is in winter, whereas in the northern hemisphere July is in summer. Thus "[i]f you live in the northern hemisphere the sun is closer during the winter than during the summer." Conversely if you live in the southern hemisphere the sun is closer during summer than it is during winter. Can you now understand what the OP wrote, and why it is correct?
That being said, Earth's orbit is only slightly elliptical, so the difference (and climatic effects) between perhelion and aphelion is slight. By contrast the effects are significant on planets (eg. Mars) which have greater eccentricity.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
According to http://www.census.gov/ :
WORLD 2007 Total, all ages 6,602,236,753
According to http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ramsey/People.html :
[...] one estimates that 96,100,000,000 people have lived on the earth.
The dead outnumber the living roughly 15 to 1.
So chances are you are already dead!
You can attach boosters to anything. It just costs more. -
Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, @12:26PM