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Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?
PRB_Ohio writes "The sun is in the middle of a century long solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.
The gist is that there is a 'jet stream' like phenomenon about 7,000km below the surface of the sun. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.
Scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to track and analyze the streams."
My theory is way simpler. The Sun simply got out of puberty, and obviously acne started to disappear...
So I guess this is what happens when you cross the streams...
Yet I still global warming deniers claim the earth is only warming due to the 11 year solar cycle. How long can they believe that?
Here is a neat article explaining more about sunspots http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm?list56376/ It talks about the cycle in sunspots.
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
... that at least some climate activity isn't and can't be affected by humans.
I'm hoping the missing sunspots has contributed to the extended drought in Australia. "The driest *insert month or time period* on record" is getting tiresome.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
I figured the Hardy Boys would be long dead by now! Great job, boys!
This is old news. Its been known for a few years now that the solar conveyor belt has slowed. The question is how long solar activity will remain weak.
During the Maunder minimum it remained weak from about 1645 to 1710. Other minimums also occurred over a fairly long duration. During these minimums the earth tends to be quite cold. Read the wikipedia article on the maunder minimum and related minimums.
Thing is we may face many decades of reduced agricultural output at a time when we have many mouths to feed.
Its too early to tell yet, but cycle #24 is over 2 years late and cycle #25 is expected to be weak as well. So we could be looking at 22+ years of cold cold weather.
NASA's logo is attached to the article, but the National Solar Observatory is funded by the National Science Foundation. Different agency entirely. http://www.nso.edu/
So those coronal mass ejections we hear about were the Sun exploring . . . mmmnnnn never mind, I won't go there.
... I call them freckles. If a sunspot moves or grows the dermatologist deals with it.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
On a different not, how depressing that I have been pushed into resenting several forms of science. When I saw the headline, my first thought was, "Crap. More data to cherry pick to justify central control over individuals." And I say this as someone who has actually published in peer reviewed journals. Gloom.
i know the upper part of the HF spectrum has been acting like the next solar cycle has already started, the DX/Skip has been incredibly good and dependable and any HF enthusiast knows that by now if they have a HF rig handy.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Of course, the fact that we have the worst global recession in 70 years at the same time as a low in sunspot activity is Entirely Coincidental. Seriously, I haven't studied this in depth, so I don't really know, but it sure seems suspicious, and it's certainly been proposed in the past that the sunspot cycle affected the economy.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Solar minimum refers to both sunspot counts and overall solar energy output. The earth is being hit by the least solar energy in a long time currently.
We are fortunate that the solar cycle is a relatively minor factor in the climate, or we'd be in a serious world of hurt (as in deaths due to famine on the order of a billion) within a decade.
The biggest mystery of sunspots is why they only come out at daytime. In all the years of observation, they have never appeared at night.
And all this time I thought the lack of sunspots was caused by global warming.
:)
Back to the drawing board.
The mice wanted to recoup the cost of getting Earth built and were wagering the sunspots at Las Vegas.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This week is the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division, which explains the timing of the press release.
There have been a number of talks regarding the long solar minimum, and although I've been avoiding most of the oral sessions, there was one by Frank Hill (another NSO person) yesterday showing that um ... okay, I can't remember what the axii on the graphs were, but that the general activity below the 'surface' of the sun was showing a more gradual ramp up than the last solar minimum, but we're roughly at the same level of activity as when we started cycle 23.
(disclaimer -- I'm not a solar physicist, but I am an affiliate SPD member ... I'd link to the abstract, but the system won't give me a useful URL)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Those natuaral variations include solar flux but not susnspots, the reason being is that there is not a scrap of hard evidence that sunspots affect Earth's climate but there is plenty of evidence they affect book sales.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It was Carmen Sandiego. Seriously, wasn't anyone paying attention?
You mean my friend who insists the sunspots are missing for the same reason that the Mayan calendar doesn't go past 2012 is WRONG? It's not all tied together in some world's-end prophecy? OK, cool. Time for a nap.
ObPedanticTheory: The real, undiscoverable, unprovable reason the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 is that they simply figured that was far enough to pre-calculate for now. They would have made the next stretch of calendar, sometime, in the thousands of years of spare time available between the calendar creation and 2012. But the need for doing so was eliminated because others invented the Gregorian calendar. Simple human convenience, folks. No need to invent our own doom to explain that. So in general, calm down.
is that you?