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."

Comments

It's sort of refreshing...

[ockegheim]

... 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.

Re:It's sort of refreshing...

[NickFortune]

What everybody fails to mention about Climate, is that 99% of it is caused by the Sun

That's an interesting way of looking at it.

Of course, you should also consider that Earth's biosphere is essentially a planet sized solar collector. Plants trap the sunlight and store it as high energy compounds. Then animals come along ad turn the plants' trapped energy into more concentrated forms, like fats. Even when the organism dies, the stored energy remains. Eventually, if given long enough it turns into fossil fuels. Six hundred million years of dinosaur blubber gave us our oil reserves. Lord knows how many years of dead trees went to make our coal.

We actually have a miniscule affect on climate

Well, that all depends on what we do, doesn't it? I mean, if we built a giant magnifying glass in space so Earth got five times more solar radiation, that would have an effect. If we launched solar reflectors into orbit so 50% of the sunlight falling on the planet was reflected away, that would have an effect too. Granted, it would be the Sun causing the effect. But it would also be us, yeah?

And to my way of thinking, if we take 600 million years of trapped solar radiation and release most of it over a paltry couple of centuries ... well, I reckon that would have an effect too.

Old news

[cdn-programmer]

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.

Re:"century-class solar minimum"

[flyingfsck]

No true.

We can take the sulphor filters out of the coal fired power stations and cause more reflection of sunlight in the upper atmosphere.

Re:HF Radio

[elkto]

Depends on what you call incredibly good. I have been hearing allot of strong E layer contacts which happens in the northern latitudes this time of year. Not allot of F layer contacts. F layer is considerably higher in altitude allowing for long distance HF communication.

During the middle of cycle 23, I worked Tokyo, Germany, the Red Sea, and Brazil, all from my car in Ohio. I heard Australia, but just could not work them.

--... ...--

Re:"century-class solar minimum"

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The 11 year cycle is superimposed on another signal, with a lower frequency, whose amplitude is currently increasing. That's the one that smart people are worried about.

The people who look at the 11 year cycle are simply examining the wrong component of a compound waveform and declaring victory. They are wrong.