Of Late, Fewer Sunspots Than Usual

esocid writes "The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. Periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. The sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, with the next cycle just beginning and expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why. In the past, solar physicists observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots, coinciding with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700." (More below.) esocid continues: "The Hinode, a Japanese satellite mission with the US and UK as partners, has three telescopes that together show how changes on the sun's surface spread through the solar atmosphere. It orbits 431 miles (694 km) above the Earth, crossing both poles and making one lap every 95 minutes, giving Hinode an uninterrupted view of the sun for several months out of the year. Scientists are not extremely worried, but have added extra ground stations in case of interference from extra solar activity, and are ready for the Sun to resume its activity." (The Little Ice Age is fascinating, full stop.)

Comments

solar warming, that's why.

[Svet-Am]

it's obvious why -- climate change and solar warming! we need legislation to fix this problem.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the Sun doesn't care about the Earth.

Sorry Fine. The Earth couldn't give a crap about the Sun either. And no, we're NOT sorry!

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[spun]

First, lack of sunspots corresponds to lowered solar output. Second, while the warming of Jupiter can be explained by increases in solar output, the warming of Earth can not. Do you honestly think climate scientists don't take this into account? That's either bordering on a tinfoil hat level of crazy conspiracy theory, or it represents an equally crazy level of disdain for other people's intellect.

I can't understand why anyone falls for this argument, it represents a complete lack of respect for science.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[JustOK]

thinking its so fucking brilliant!

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[Moraelin]

Ok, let's do some science. Physics, to be precise. We'll start from the StefanBoltzmann law.

Radiated energy is proportional to the _fourth_ power of the temperature. For a black body j = sigma * T^4, for a body that's not quite black, you just plug an emissivity factor in too.

A body heated by an external source (e.g., Earth) reaches equilibrium when the radiated energy equals the incoming energy. So the equation works just the same with j being the _incoming_ energy from the Sun.

What I'm getting at is that the average temperature of Earth is in the ballpark of 300K. We had an increase of 1K in a whole bloody century. That's the whole Global Warming. That's an increase of 0.3% or so. Plugging it back into the StefanBoltzmann law, we need an increase of only 1.003^4=1.01205 times in solar output to _fully_ explain it. That's 1.2% btw.

But even that's a bit over-calculated. Being that the same law applies to the Sun's power output, basically we just need the same 0.3% increase in the Sun's temperature to get that effect, all else being equal. You don't need anything spectacular to happen, really.

Yes, sunspots are a cause of short term variations, but we really don't know what the Sun has been gradually doing over that century. If both Jupiter _and_ Mars have been warming up, maybe the Sun is warming up after all.

And finally, well, if you're that concerned about insults to people's intelligence... maybe you should STFU with the "shut up and don't dare question the High Priests" attitude. Just a thought.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[mh1997]

"...while the warming of Jupiter can be explained by increases in solar output, the warming of Earth can not.

At least 25% of it can be:

From http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512120523.htm

Over the past century, Earth's average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Solar heating accounts for about 0.15 C, or 25 percent, of this change, according to computer modeling results published by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies researcher David Rind in 2004.

"Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene," said Cahalan. "Over recent decades, however, we have moved into a human-dominated climate that some have termed the Anthropocene. The major change in Earth's climate is now really dominated by human activity, which has never happened before."

My question is what is the optimum temperature to sustain life on our planet? I've searched and can't find that answer and would appreciate any help. I'm not denying warming or trying to flame, I am serious about the question.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[Quadraginta]

I imagine one could fit a black-body curve to the solar spectrum, for example. That would probably give a pretty precise answer.

However, the OP has a point, even if it wasn't put all that sophisticatedly. The question of the influence of solar output on the Earth's energy budget is not as settled as you imply. In the first place, he's right, only very subtle changes in the huge amounts of energy flowing in and out of the Earth's ecosystem are required, and these are inherently difficult to measure accurately. Generally speaking, you're subtracting large and nearly equal numbers from each other, which is always tricky.

Secondly, the Sun does more than simply heat the Earth through radiation. It emits ionizing radiation that ionizes the atmosphere (which is what allows over-the-horizon radio communication). It injects charged particles into Earth's magnetic field. It has a magnetic field itself that interacts with that of the Earth, and changes the way charged particles from the Sun and the cosmos hit the Earth. These things may have subtle effects on, for example, cloud formation -- and therefore on the Earth's albedo.

One might well say who cares about all this weird third- and fourth-order stuff if we were talking about big changes in Earth's climate. But we're not. We're not trying to explain an Ice Age, still less a "snowball Earth" event, or the runaway hothouse climate of Venus. We're trying to explain a temperature trend that is so slight that it is not only much smaller than annual and diurnal variations, it is smaller than the unexplained "background noise" variations in the measurement. It's only by averaging over a long time that you can even see any temperature change.

Does that mean the leading explanation of the day for the observed temperature change (anthropogenic CO2 emission) is wrong? Nope. But it very well does suggest a bit of humility about the possibility of other explanations. Mother Nature has a long, long history of confounding "obvious" explanations.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[Coriolis]

Are you perhaps referring to this article from 2001 which suggests that cosmic rays (which are different from emissions from the Sun, btw) intensify the effect of CFCs?

I suggest that you first read through the resources on realclimate.org on solar forcing, where it has been extensively discussed, and if you wish to dispute their findings, then please attack the science, not the scientist.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[packeteer]

Before you go claiming "tinfoil hat science" I would look at the universities where those climatologist teach. With Berkley, Stanford, and any other liberal biased university behind their name, you can bet on their position.

I find it interesting that anytime the facts don't line up with someone's values they say there is a "liberal bias" going on. That is a classic ad hominem attack. It's literally a textbook example of one, but I'm sure that textbook must be biased.

Maybe rational people and the apparent facts of the world have a liberal bias. Or perhaps the forces of unreason in the world have seen a polarized society and chose to exploit one side to support their arguments. Most of the time if someone is greedy and they need public support for themselves all the need to do is claim this is a political issue and generally poor conservatives will support them.

Re:solar warming, that's why.

[ihuntrocks]

Yes, you are correct, it is a rapid (geologically speaking) and large process. However, it isn't the fastest we've ever experienced a warming event in our history. I also think that it's interesting to note that nearly all of our previous warming events either predate our species or at least predate our technology. Thankfully this isn't a topic of who is to blame for climate change, so forgive me for straying slightly off topic to mention that.

What I would like to mention is that I am really loving the increasing levels of CO2. It's a perfect compliment for all of the free oxygen we're getting out of the deal. Think about it: oceans warm, ice melts, algae grows in the now exposed and warmer waters and is further fed by the growing levels of CO2. We can see evidence of this happening many times (rock flowering is one such source). Geologists have known that this seems to happen to our planet, largely of its own volition, from time to time, and to tell you the truth: we haven't been worried. I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about. Oh, no, the average global temperature is going up by a degree Celsius over the course of half a century due to the millions of tons of carbon output we have as a species. Yeah, well, when Mount Pinatubo erupted, it released enough ash to lower (bear in mind, this is with global warming working against it) the average planetary temperature by one degree Celsius for two years. We also won't go into the random releasing of tons and tons of methane that was compressed as ice under the oceans quite a long time ago which fried the crap out of the planet. Now THAT was global warming. The planet itself spontaneously released more greenhouse gases than we as a species have since our inception. Oh, the things nature does when no one is paying attention. Honestly, someone should lobby against random acts of nature which are harmful to....nature.

I'm just going to kick back and enjoy the benefits of this naturally occurring process. I'm really okay with more oxygen, and better beach locations popping up around the world that haven't been exploited as such, what with the past temperate spell we've been having (glad to see we're not stuck in that anymore).

On another note, I believe this may encourage a healthier life style for people in general. We've all known for a long time that fat people don't do well in the heat. This is just a little incentive from nature (in small part helped by humans) and I welcome it.

Re:You mean the Sun's spot production has been ...

[MarcoG42]

Apparently, no spotting at all. Word is the sun is tremendously worried and was seen at CVS in the pregnancy test section.

Re:Global warming my blue butt

[bunratty]

No discernible warming since 2000? Then this article from NASA must be all wrong then. Thanks for letting us know! *rolleyes*

Re:Global warming my blue butt

[pushing-robot]

Incidentally this lull in solar activity coincides with there having been no discernable warming since 2000.

Even if that were true, which it isn't, one would expect *cooling* during this half of the cycle.

Re:Global warming my blue butt

[bunratty]

You mean like these graphs from the IPCC which show an increase in global temperatures from 2000 to 2007?

Dearie, that was satire

[Moraelin]

Your characterization of climate scientists as a high priesthood says all I need to know about your respect for real science. You are one of those people who jumps to conclusions and then reasons backwards to find a comfortable theory that fits what you'd like to believe is true.

Heh. No, dearie. That was my satire at people who treat it as some kind of fucked-up religion. The moment you go some variant of "OMG, you're not worthy to question The Great Scientists", you're not about science any more.

Get this: you don't need anyone's seal of approval to use your own head. Einstein was a nobody working as a patent office clerk, when he thought he could do better than the great Lorentz. Galileo was a nobody to question the great scientists of the Aristotelian establishment. Etc.

There is _nothing_ that's sacrosanct and beyond questioning, no matter what Great Man said it. Even if he's a scirentist. In fact, _especially_ if he's a scientist.

Now I'm not saying that you or I are as smart as Einstein but the principle remains the same. Capisci? Attitudes like, basically, "OMG, don't even try to question The Scientists, you're not worth it," have _nothing_ to do with _science_. That's how religion works, not science.

Science works more like, "Ok, let's see your data."

And in a nutshell _that_ is what ticks me off about the carbon cultists. That fucked up attitude that there's only one Truth, some High Priests... err... "Scientists" hand it down as some sacrosanct beyond-questioning Holy Truth, and you're not worthy to question Them. And everyone is the Enemy if they even try to think about it on their own. That's _not_ science. That's religion in pseudo-science garb.

Regardless of whether the scientists studying that are right or right, and they probably are are real scientists... the gang of rabid eco-zealots waging holy crusade in their name, are not. They just perverted that science into some weird kind of religion.