Solar Cycle 24 Has Started

radioweather writes "Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. As of Friday, that wait is over. A magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged on the surface of the sun. Just a few months ago, an 'All Quiet Alert' had been issued for the sun. This reversed-polarity sunspot marks the beginning of the sun's return back to Solar Maximum. Solar Cycle 24 has been the subject of much speculation due to competing forecasts on whether it will be a highly active or a quiet low cycle. If it is a low cycle, it may very well be a test of validity for some CO2 based global warming theories. Only time will tell."

Comments

Re:discredit global warming theories? no way

[altoz]

> You're part of the "9-11 Truth" committee... you think HIV doesn't cause AIDS... you think MMR vaccine causes autism... and
> your presidential candidate of choice is Ron Paul.

Let me answer. I think 9-11 truth is a bunch of crock. I do think HIV causes AIDS. I think autism is genetic and I support Clinton and McCain (registered Democrat, btw). I'm going to make a guess here and say that you're an incredibly poor guesser and very quick to jump to opinions. That means you're either a liberal Democrat or an extreme conservative Republican, but given the AIDS/Ron Paul remark, I'm going to guess that you're a liberal Democrat and a troll.

Re: CO2 based "theories"?

[Black Parrot]

Al Gore and my local talk radio station both say 'the debate is over' The scientific debate *is* over, just as the scientific debates over the age of the earth and the reality of evolution are over.

But that doesn't end the _public_ debate, which is kept going because you've got some people who desperately want the public to believe something other than reality.

Re:discredit global warming theories? no way

[JaredOfEuropa]

Yes, just like the 99.9% of scientists in relevant fields who accept atomic theory, general relativity, and the heliocentric solar system are just doing so to make themselves rich and powerful at the public's expense.

Do you perhaps mean 99.9% of the scientists who are actually quoted when the climate issue comes up? There are many who are not heard. And what is it that these 99.9% of them actually agree on?

1 - The earth is getting warmer on average (probable, even though temperature statistics alone fail to significantly indicate this as yet)
2 - CO2 levels are up (very certain).
3 - CO2 is the leading cause for this temperature increase (uncertain, some have suggested solar activity, and others suggest that increased CO2 is the result of an increasing temperature rather than the cause of it. It could be both cause and effect as well)
4 - CO2 produced by burning of fossil fuels are a significant factor in the temperature increase (this seems likely if (and that's a big if) point 3 turns out to be true.

You cannot simply say that since most scientists agree on point 1, they therefore agree on points 2-4 as well. But that's exactly the sort of sloppy reporting we see so often on TV. The IPCC report did the same thing by the way: the science itself in the report is reasonably sound, but the summary and conclusion draw some rather wild and rash conclusions from the data. There was some last-minute "political" editing going on to make things seem more dire, and more certain, than the research actually indicated. This is why a bunch of scientists who collaborated on the IPCC report did not stand behind it when they read the conclusion. By no means do 99.9% of the experts in the field agree on point 3, not even close.

I stand by my previous statement: while we may be the actual cause of global warming, most of the debate is political rather than scientific, and scientists are not nearly as unanimous in their conclusions as is suggested in the media.