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The Sun Has First Spotless Month Since 1913
radioweather writes "August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC September 1st 2008 (5PM PST)
we just witnessed the
first spotless calendar month since June 1913.This was determined according
to sunspot
data from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749.
In the 95 years since 1913, we've had quite an active sun, but activity has been
declining in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been spotless for 42
days total, but this is the first full calendar month since 1913 for a spotless
sun. And there are other indicators of the sun being in a funk. Australia's
space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the
expected date for a ramping up of
cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months."
As one of the links above indicate, there was a "sunspeck" reported August 21/22, though. Reader MikeyTheK adds a link to a story at Daily Tech on the spotless record.
No, on the contrary. Small "sunspecks" cannot be seen without modern equipment and thus do not exist in the earlier records.
it's in my head
This is precisely what is being discussed right now among some climatologists. The problem isn't so much that there is a solar sunspot minimum, but rather that the current trend is that the number of sunspots is still statistically dropping when in fact it should be going up dramatically.... given a more typical historical trend over the past couple of centuries.
The delay of the start of the next sunspot maximum cycle is what is causing all sorts of head scratching and wondering if there is some other cycle that until now hasn't been observed in the sun. All I can say is thank goodness that there is historical data going back to the 1700's that can confirm this is something that could happen, even if there are a few individuals who don't get it.
STEREO A and B are more than 70 degrees apart, so you'd only need to wait 8.25 days from when it leaves the sight of STEREO A 'til it's seen by STEREO B. In a few years, we'll have real-time view of the far side of the sun. (until they come back around near Earth again)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Now why might this have happened? Why do papers predicting a period of low solar activity fail to be published (see the full articles)?
Sun spot cycles we a well known phenomenon.
The low point of the cycle has been predicted for 2007-2008 for the last 20 years!
This graph is one such prediction that you say has been suppressed.