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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.
The sun has discovered the best acne medication in the universe.
I am officially gone from
to 'prove' that global warming isn't manmade.
There we go, asking people to prove negatives again. Why don't you start by proving that it IS man-made?
Or conversely, prove that it ISN'T caused by the belly button lint of invisible space goats.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
OH MY
So... CO2 causes global warming, apparently on Mars and Jupiter too. Yet when sunspot activity decreases, this whole global warming trend slows down (to the tune of no increase of global temperature in over 8 years). And in the 1990s when sunspot activity was some of the highest ever recorded, global temperatures rose. I wonder if this is a coincidence.... or is it?
So really... are you all still addicted to that theory? That it's all about the CO2?
I know. How strange is it that they think that the largest source of heat in the entire solar system would have ANYTHING to do with one of the planets getting warmer...
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"There we go, asking people to prove negatives again. Why don't you start by proving that it IS man-made?"
The argument being made is that it HAS been proven, as far as one can prove anything in such indeterministic systems.
Of course, we had proof for years that ulcers were caused by stress. Nope - bacteria.
Proof that the continents were immobile in their positions. Well, not so much proof as that it was just so totally OBVIOUS that continents couldn't move, and that "continental drift" was a crackpot theory. Until it wasn't.
AIDS was a breakdown of the immune system because of IV drug use, exposure to multiple venereal diseases, and the generally unhealth lifestyle of the gay community. Until they isolated a virus.
The reality is that scientific "proof" consists of general agreement among communities of people about the interpretation of observed phenomena, and that agreement can be driven by MANY factors, not just how well the data fits. One CANNOT get to the level of mathematical proof. So there will always be a role for skeptics, and those that just won't accept that, if you have a square peg and a round hole, you just pretend the peg's squareness doesn't exist, because it MUST fit into the round hole.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
2008 is going to be the coolest year of the 21st century so far. A combination of an el nina and low sunspot activity. But it's still on target to be one of the warmest years on record. It ought to have been one of the coldest years on record.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
As to how the Earth is heating up due to there being too few sun spots or birds are falling out of the sky and little children are being eaten by monsters at the worlds edge.
I'm really interested in stories about science but every one like this seems to be taken as an excuse for the uninformed to come up with todays hair brained theory to scare the masses. I wonder if we can link this to terrorism in some way.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Considering that recorded history is but a tiny fraction of human existence, which is in turn but a tiny fraction of earth's existence, I have a hard time believing anything anyone says about long-term trends. We just don't know.
Of course atmospheric/climate scientists have considered the impact of the sun. Please, don't assume they're complete idiots.
The problem with global warming alarmism is not not the climate science is poor, but that it is used to rationalize unnecessarily intrusive interventions in people's lives that have little to do with preventing catastrophe, and very questionable impact on net emissions.
The obvious, least economically damaging, least intrusive way to handle the problem is to simply internalize the costs that CO2 emissions throw off, either by tradeable caps or a tax, and then apply the funds to mitigating the damage. Then, you don't have to do impossible calculations about which activities are "truly wasteful", and people can decide how they cut back. And even if they don't, such a solution is still robust, as such a decision would just generate more funds with which to handle the problem.
But the most vocal alarms don't want this. Instead, they propose a laundry list of intrusive interventions, and then want to pick and choose which technologies are the "right" ones. If they were honest about wanting to avert catastrophe, the debate today would be about the size of the tax or cap, not about whether we should ban this particular product on the grounds that it gets an emotional reaction out of some people. Alarmism has been more about whether you're "on the team" or not. If the most efficient solution for you is to get better insulation rather than a hybrid, well, the latter would signal that you're "one of them" and the former wouldn't, so ...
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The argument being made is that it HAS been proven, as far as one can prove anything in such indeterministic systems.
If by GW you mean AGW then like hell it has. If you read ./ summaries, a few newspapers and A. Gore, then perhaps its a "fact". But read the source peer reviewed articles they claim to summarize. They use phrases like "it suggests", and "gives support to" rather than phrases like "statistically significant".
A good question to ask is how is the "mean" earth temperature measured, both current and Historic and whats the variance?
There are some facts out there that do matter (e.g. CO2 increases from industrialization). But thats not a proof of any claimed causal effects.
We simply have not been doing this sort of modeling long enough nor tested it enough to give credible confidence intervals yet. I'm not saying that mitigation programs now don't make sense. They do, but I can think of a lot of better reasons that AGW.
And in regard to general agreement in the scientific community WRT AGW? If you don't agree or are even just a little bit skeptical, you would have left that community a long time ago. Using a set of examples where there "was general agreement" that turned out to be wrong does not support the idea that "general agreement" on AGW is evidence of AGW.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
...my boyfriend panics.
What the hell are you smoking? There was a warning that it *could* be ice free. Not to mention that North Pole being ice free is not the same as no ice anywhere. And so far, they're on track to have the smallest summer covering ever. By a few million square kilometers.
Really. If climate change wouldn't be such a huge issue, I'd take comfort in the fact that the only people disputing it can't even read the articles they're quoting. Instead, it's just depressing.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Nasa [pewclimate.org] is calling your statistic irrelevant. Not to mention that 1934 was warmer than 2001 by about 0.1 degrees celsius. I'd give it about 5-7 years before that record is broken - which should be right about the time we hit another sunspot maximum.
I like that you're making falsifiable predictions. Most people talking about this issue won't even do that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually, my tinfoil hat is much, much bigger than yours. The Powers That Be [PTB] (the queen, the rothchilds' the Colonel, etc.) control both the conservatives and liberals at the highest levels. They play us off each other and maintain their own power my ensuring the general public is clearly divided against each other, ignoring the rich and powerful who are the real problem.
Here's how it works:
The 'PTB' have recently given a lot of money and power to the libs to promote the global warming idea base on "science". This is a check on the conservatives, whom they slowly put in power over the last few decades in order to check the liberals they let in in the 60s and 70s, and so on. The dems will continue to gain power in congress and win the presidency this year, but the failure of Global Warming models, which all assume a constant input from the sun, and failed policies based on the incorrect global warming/evil CO2/oil shortage assumption, will give the 'PTB' the opening they need to put the conservatives back in power, thereby checking the soon-to-be-powerful dems. What's more, the failure of "science" will foster a mistrust of real science in the general public, keeping us ignorant and controllable.
Some of you might point out that even if the top 1% have a greater portion of the wealth now than they did 50 years ago, our standard of living has steadily improved (at least in Europe and America). This is true in many respects, such as the portion of our income we spend on food, access to communication, healthcare technology, etc. It's false in many others, however, such as quality of food (tasted a tomato lately?) and quality of communication (TV, blogs, and underfunded print media narrowly focused on national issues, vs. community clubs like the Elks and Lions and well funded print media focused on local issues). Plus, you have to take into account opportunity cost. How much more could our lives have improved had government made better decisions.
What's more, we've become dependent on a system controlled by a select few. Healthcare is better, but you'd better keep working or you won't be able to see a doctor when you need to. Home 'ownership' is up when you ignore mortgages, but real debt-free ownership is way down. Water and Mineral rights are independent of land, so even those who think they own land can have it effectively taken away at any time. They're handing out plenty of fish but jealously guarding the poles and nets.
Remember, it's not the guy with the thin black mustache you've got to watch out for. If he were evil, he'd be a complete failure because he looks it. The truly successful evil person is the ones that convinces his victims that he's not good. As I said, my tinfoil hat is the 10-gallon kind.
They use phrases like "it suggests", and "gives support to" rather than phrases like "statistically significant".
Actually, the Fourth Assessment Report produced in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a report with several hundred scientific contributors and co-authors, uses phrases like "very high confidence" and "very likely".
"There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming" (p. 37)
"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations" (p. 39)
> All joking aside, does anyone else get the feeling they're changing the definition of a sunspot just so they can claim it was a spotless month?
Actually my thought was more the opposite. I have made spaceweather.com one of my daily visits. When it looked like a sunspot MIGHT be forming the official sunspot number went from zero to three. Eh? Don't you actually have to have a spot to count it? Then the area of interest went away and they put the number back at zero. Looks like somebody decided somebody jumped the gun and corrected the records.
Now why might this have happened? Why do papers predicting a period of low solar activity fail to be published (see the full articles)? Could it be the same reason scientific papers questioning global warming end careers without ever seeing the light of day? And of couse the refrain from the warmers is "all peer reviewed science supports man made Global Warming!" Science isn't becoming politicized, it IS politicized. Global Warming is the vehicle whereby "Scientific Socialism" is to bring untold political power to the 'elite educated and wise' few, and a rational planned and controlled world to the poor miserable peasants who would otherwise revert to cannibalism (or worse, a life of free markets without the elites) without their enlightened rule. Thus whether it is true or just a fairy tale is a question that must not be permitted to be entertained by 'serious people.' And the quickest way to ensure that is to define the phrase 'serious people' such that it excludes all who disagree with the official party policy.
Democrat delenda est
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.
Here is an article that may clear up your confusion about the 'hockey stick', if that's not enough then you can always ask M.Mann to set you straight.
Notice that contrary to your assertion that there is some sort of conspiracy to stiffle critics and ruin their carers, Mann's web site goes to the trouble of pointing out it's own critics in the "other opinions" section on the RH side of the page.
Skepticisim: First you post an "insightfull" anti-science troll worthy of M.Chrichton, then you do exactly what you claim this cospiracy is doing by backing up your claim with politically inspired psuedo-science regurgitated from a right-wing rag. That is not skepticisim, it is in fact what phycologists call "projection".
Occam's razor: Would indicate that it is YOU allowing YOUR politics to intefere with science and this global conspiracy of which you speak is nothing but a figment of your imagination brought about by your apparent inability to be skeptical of your own assumptions.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.