Sunspot Activity Continues To Drop

slreboy writes "The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. The year 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87 percent)..."

Comments

why

[esocid]

is it taking editors the 2nd time around to post these stories.
/rant

While it may not be time to panic, there are some other startling signs

1. Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20 percent drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990sâ"the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s.
2. Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft have also shown that the sun's brightness has dimmed by 0.02 percent at visible wavelengths and a whopping 6 percent at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996.
3. Finally, radio telescopes are recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955.

At this point there's nothing really we can do, but it may need an explanation as to why it has hit such a low, and when the below-average maximum will occur (supposedly in 2012).

Re:Maybe we're on the wrong side of the sun?

[mea37]

The sun rotates. In the course of a month, we see it from all sides.

I know your being funny, but for are other readers

[geekoid]

I would like to point out that this law states:

"If A and B are each in thermal equilibrium with C, A is also in thermal equilibrium with B."
Important links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics

and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

Plagiarism

[momerath2003]

Not only is the summary ripped from the linked article without quoting it, but the article is plagiarized in whole from ScienceDaily! I knew I'd seen it before this article, and this explains why. The blogger even hotlinked the image from science daily, wasting their bandwidth.

The linked article in the summary should be adjusted to the original ScienceDaily article and the entire summary should be quoted from it rather than attributed to slreboy.

Bad news for Amateur Radio

[sdaemon]

I realize that HAM radio is a bit of an anachronism in the eyes of most slashdot readers, but it's still the most viable medium for emergency communications. Unfortunately, with sunspot activity being so low, HF communications become very limited. Whole bands of RF spectrum are almost unusable, because the E-layer of the ionosphere can no longer bounce higher frequencies of radio waves. 40m wavelength and lower tend to still be usable, 20m is come-and-go, and 17m and higher become sporadic or completely unusable.

I'm 31, I've been a HAM for 6 years. My cell phone often doesn't get coverage where I roam, and my power and internet and landline phone have been knocked out by storms and provider mistakes. Radio works when all else fails... ...but sometimes it works better than others!

Re:fun with statistics

[Aladrin]

I think his point was that you should not compare a year's worth of data to 3 months' worth. They could simply take the last 365 days and compare it to the 365 before that and it would make a lot more sense.

The problem, of course, is all the -other- people already using calendar years with their data like it means something.

Re:Venus

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Direct satellite measurements of solar output for the last 30 years.

Re:Venus

[operagost]

Mars

Jupiter

Re:Venus

[NeutronCowboy]

The article about Jupiter mentions nothing about a planet-wide increase in temperature. The Mars article mentions an increase in dust storm reducing albedo and therefore increasing light absorption. Still a far cry from the ggp's claim that 5 planets are all experiencing the same increase in temperature.

Re:Venus

[Abcd1234]

ROFL, and how, pray tell, do those articles qualify as "30 years" of temperature data that "correlate with the rising temperature trends on Earth in that period." Oh, wait, they don't.

Hell, the Jupiter article isn't about planetary warming at all. And as for Mars, "Martian climate is primarily driven by dust and albedo and there is little empirical evidence that Mars is showing long term warming." (source).

See how I provided a citation for my quote? And how the article linked contains references for its claims? Neat, eh?

Re:Here we go...

[DarkOx]

That's right I am sick of their agenda, which has nothing do to with clean water and air. I want clean air, and clean water. Not water filled with heavy metals and PCBs from their stupid soon to be mandated CFL lamps, or LED lamps. I want air that is not filled with all sorts of nasty acids from manufacturing all these stupid solar panels, LED lamps, batteries for retarded hybrid cars, etc, etc.

I will take a little extra of the HARMLESS C02, that you, I, and the rest of the air breathing creatures of this planet are exhaling every instant. Slightly larger fruit and some small risk of rising temperature, for which there is no compelling evidence are all things I can live with.

We should be ensuring that our burring of focile fuels coal, oil, etc, is being do cleanly and producing only CO2 + H20. That would be the most "Green" thing we could be doing. Most of this "Green" tech is just lower C02 tech and comes at the expense of being "Green" not in support of it. C02 has become everyones sole focus, and its completely wrong. It might not even pose any sort of threat! Yet we are doing all sorts of things to reduce it that have very well known negative side effects.