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Solar Dynamo Still Anemic, Magnetism and UV Lax
radioweather writes "While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of the cycle. Recently, the sun went spotless again, and the solar Ap geomagnetic index, an indicator of the solar magneto, hit zero. It is something you really don't expect to see this far along into the cycle. In other solar news, scientists monitoring the SORCE solar satellite have found that solar ultraviolet emissions have dropped significantly in the past few years. The Solar Irradiance Monitor on the satellite 'suggests that ultraviolet irradiance fell far more than expected between 2004 and 2007 — by ten times as much as the total irradiance did — while irradiance in certain visible and infrared wavelengths surprisingly increased, even as solar activity wound down overall.'"
first step to solar fail?
Is it just me, or dose it seem the curve for the prediction coming out, shows a faster return then the fall coming in?
A longer lower end may be followed by a slow return too.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
I'm a nerd
Now are you? I actually found this interesting! Plus that is why we have comments...to explain this (later on...) to the rest of us. Moderation is gold.
You want something recent and boring?
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
It may be low now, but the sun is expect to reach peak intensity in 2012...
When comparing the actual results to the predictions, the brief analysis given by the lead investigator Dr. Sunny M. Sparks was:
"The fuck?!"
Assestion to which the closer grad student, not fully comprehending the ramifications of such discovery, replied:
"Not my fault! I swear! ... It was Jackson! He was playing WoW in the lab computer not two days ago."
While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of the cycle.
It took me a while to figure out what "solar cycle" meant. I thought it was talking about the 24th day of December. Then with all that talk of predictions of where we are in respect to the day, I had no idea what was going on.
probably because it doesn't have any effect on you directly that you care about
This is important for people who refract HF radio waves off the ionosphere back to earth because the amount of UV radiation determines the thickness of the layers of the ionosphere which determines what frequencies refract back and which don't.
NASA needs some gas certified plumbing engineers to send out to service the boiler...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Like why I can't seem to be able to tan at all...
I'm a nerd and all and I see it's all sciency, but this reads like a journal entry from the world's most boring man.
I agree. After reading the summary a couple of times all I am sure of is that the next X-Men movie will be set on the Sun, but the plot seems very confusing.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Peak solar!
The sun's just doing its part to slow global warming.
Yum
a bit like-a da sah-sa-jez (learn Chicagoanese) inna my a-piz-za pie.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/sausage+pizzeria+due+/TIPT544/PIZZA/sausagepizz.jpg
a brand new-in-the-box 10-meter HF/FM transceiver purchased after Cycle 23...
25 watts and work the world!
Hehe, the next paper in the series will probably be "lungs have the perfect construction for retaining enough oxygen that we can go about our daily lives but not too much such that our cells will burn out".
ics
This can be because
Sun has already been bought by Oracle?
The Sun is a very old thing. Like most old ham radio operators, SOL didn't like the FCC screwing around with the testing. "BY GUMMIT! I had'ta take the 25WPM test to get my Extra, so should all you youngins!" he was heard exclaiming after the rule change. So ol' Sol got together one morning over coffee with all his buddies on 80 meters and hatched a plan: "I'll just turn down the sunspots for a while, they tend to inflame my gout anyway. That way they'll have to use CW, since they all live in deed-restricted tract houses and can't put up boomers like we have!"
And so, as the newly-licensed HAMs bought their Miracle Whips and Outbackers, in the hopes of cycle 23 kicking up and making it easy to work the world, their hopes (and bank accounts) were quickly dashed on the reality of all quiet bands (except for those old guys talking about their aches and pains) and those weird sounds at the bottom of the band. Some took to new methods, and some picked up the old ways, but the old guys, with their antenna farms and "full limit" linear amps got to keep "their" voice subbands and coffee klatches, comforted in the knowledge that their frequency will continue to belong to them, for as long as they can keep it.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Isn't this a great thing, though? I'd think that a significantly lower output would give our planet's defenses a bit of a breather to possibly recharge. And, to be honest, the planet will be fine. CO2 levels are extremely low compared to past levels. The planet was just fine back then when it was at 8-10X the current levels, even. Sure, the ice caps might melt a bit, and you probably should wear more sunscreen, but that's about it until the next Ice Age that we are heading into will get started. Even that will be survivable - just ask the people in Moscow if they are planning to evacuate because of the cold.
Global warming is happening. And so what? The planet will be fine and life will go on.
A link about historic CO2 levels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png
Looks horrible, correct? All it will likely do is trigger the next ice age to start in 30-50 years instead of the normal 200 or 300.
http://biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html
Suddenly it's not so horrible. It takes insanely high levels to actually cause problems in terms of damaging the ecosystem. Even at our current levels, we are only at the "o" in Epoch at the far right of the graph. It seems high to us, but it's a blip in the overall picture.
What's worrying though is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
This damage is man-made and potentially is something that could actually destroy our ability to live a decent life. But nobody at all is doing anything about it. (lower oxygen production, 1/6th of the world's food supply vanishing, and many other ills as a result) We'll "survive" if it gets out of control, but it won't be pretty.
Yes, let's jump to grand conclusions based on a single unproven assumption. Betting all life as we know it against maximizing profits is a perfectly rational course of action.
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." -- James Madison
Well, who knows, but it would be nice if we were entering a new Maunder type Minimum. We could use some help keeping the planet from overheating.
Freakin' Microsoft. Who gave them the contract to upgrade SunOS, anyway?!?
Is it me, or shouldn't we be thinking about a performance improvement plan to get those UV emissions up by the next solar cycle?
Sounds like a precursor to a Supernova.
Yes, let's jump to grand conclusions based on a single unproven assumption. Betting all life as we know it against maximizing profits is a perfectly rational course of action.
Uh, no. No one is saying global warming will destroy "all life as we know it". In fact, the alarmists never mention the benefits of global warming for some - it's all about the negatives. Think of Canadian wheat for instance.
At any rate, global power generation could be moving much more rapidly towards less carbon emissions, if it weren't for the irrational fear of nuclear power exhibited by the eco-fringe. Market forces should also prevail as solar power actually becomes competitive with fossil fuels.
There never has been a major crisis, it's been manufactured. Even NASA is beginning to come around.
Note that that study predicts only ~1.7 C warming with CO2 doubling from current levels - and that (as always) presumes no change to solar or volcanic inputs.
Another point often discarded by the alarmists is no matter what Western society does to mitigate CO2, Russia, India, China and the "developing world" will swamp those efforts. China's CO2 output in 2030 could equal the ENTIRE WORLD's output today. The good news is that so far the real world has not reflected the alarmism from the GW proponents computer models. Most /. readers are familiar with the GIGO principle I'm sure.. ;-)
Merry Christmas!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I remember reading 10 - 15 years ago about a couple Russian scientists that said we didn't have to worry about global warming because there would be a mini ice age commencing somewhere around the year 2010. No, really... I did read that. Boy those Russkies are smart.
Should we be working on a space-based mirror system to concentrate sunlight and maybe prevent 10,000 foot thick glaciers marching down the continent all the way to Omaha? If you thought GW was going to screw up the environment, think about that. Far worse.
Or maybe a series of electric power satellites, 1000's of terawatts that would, when the waste heat is dumped into the atmoshphere, just maybe help things along to thwart the glaciers.
We may yet have to do something...
Actually, some scientists noticed early the the recent solar minimum we experienced was looking a lot like the Dalton minimum. And so far it continues to resemble it. If so, we are probably in for some cooler weather.
Except that Piers Corbin is not a climatologist, is a borderline quack, and none of his "research" in this area is backed up by peer reviewed articles.
Now add to this that the past three winters have actually been some of the warmest winters (especially in the arctic) we've had, there is nothing very "harbinger" about it. Warmer winters mean more precipitation, which is what we've been seeing. Currently, there are wide swaths of the arctic that are as much as 20F warmer than their average, hence for the first time on record there has actually been an arctic ice REDUCTION in winter which you can see for yourself here http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html, or you can go by ice volume here http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php . In addition, global temperatures have still been rising even during a solar minimum. Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe.
I think I'll continue following the consensus of the body of climate science, thanks.
~X~
Isn't this a great thing, though?
Absolutely. It's good to see a rare common-sense post on /.
The ocean acidification issue is worrisome, but there is little to be done about it in the short term. It will take a breakthrough in geoengineering to reverse things given how the next fifty years is likely to shake out.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Piers Corbyns beliefs and speculations aren't based on any actual science or evidence.
That is completely incorrect. You'd better do some more reading.
Are you denying that Solar Grand Minima have an effect on the Earth? Ludicrous if so...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
BTW, nice job posting AC... LOL
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The planet was just fine back then when it was at 8-10X the current levels, even.
The Sun was considerably cooler back when CO2 levels were orders of magnitude greater than they are today. The Sun gets hotter as it ages.
All it will likely do is trigger the next ice age to start in 30-50 years instead of the normal 200 or 300.
According to scientists who study Milankovitch cycles the next glaciation of the current ice age we are in probably won't begin for at least 20,000 years.
It takes insanely high levels to actually cause problems in terms of damaging the ecosystem.
How much "damage" occurs is also a function of the rate of change. The current rate of change in CO2 levels is an order of magnitude or more greater than natural change rates.
Ocean acidification is the other half of the damage we are inflicting on the planet.
Global warming is happening. And so what? The planet will be fine and life will go on.
Yes, the planet will go on and life will still exist. But it will be a planet that is largely unrecognizable to the current population of humans.
AC is spot on.
I also note that the referenced website bills itself "The WORLDWIDE LEADER in WEIRD". My feeling: don't think this type of input is really more relevant to public policy than Al Gore's movies...
So, there's no immediacy to global warming, we have time to get it right
Isn't that convenient? The planet is steadily getting warmer, we have enormous evidence that it's caused by greenhouse gases, sea levels are rising, polar ice is shrinking, glaciers around the world are melting, the ocean is getting more acidic... but hey, someone has predicted (based on a method that is only one step removed from astrology) that we're actually starting an ice age, so there's no hurry to actually do anything!
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Yeah, but we're tough. I'm sure some of us will survive. I just sort of feel sorry for the unfortunate people who live in coastal areas, because it's going to get a lot worse. IIRC ~70% of the world's urban areas are near oceans or in coastal plains. Definitely time to move inland to at least 100-200ft.
Well, sea level rise is a slow motion disaster. It's not that hard to get out of the way, just expensive. The biggest danger is that sea level creeps up then along comes a hurricane and the storm surge goes far inland like what happened with Katrina along the Mississippi coast.
I don't expect the human race to go extinct any time soon from climate change. Our intelligence and adaptability will keep us going as long as some of us can find food and shelter. But population levels could be drastically lower than they are today. We may not be able to support the level of infrastructure we do today.
" Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe."
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth. All that cold air that should be in the Arctic is flowing south through here. So there should be a southern wind somewhere, and apparently it's over Greenland.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them. CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not. Something else is going on. Exactly what is the great question.
you might also look at the less than stable temperature history of the Eemian interglacial. Apparently, "stable temperatures" and "interglacial" do not go together.
Whoa. That is so completely, totally wrong, I hardly know where to start.
The greenhouse effect is very well understood. It's the sort of thing you derive as an exercise in an undergrad electromagnetism class. You can find a discussion of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect, but the basic idea is very simple. When light hits any material (solid, liquid, or gas), some energy is transmitted, some is reflected, and some is absorbed. The details depend strongly on both the material and the frequency of the incoming light. That's why different objects are different colors: because they vary in how much light of each color they reflect.
The energy from the sun is primarily in the ultraviolet and visible frequencies. When it hits the earth, much of the energy is absorbed, then re-emitted as lower frequency infrared light. Many materials (including glass, which is how greenhouses work, and carbon dioxide, which is how the earth's greenhouse effect works) are more reflective of infrared light than of ultraviolet or visible light. That's how they hold in energy: a larger fraction of the energy coming in gets through than of the energy trying to get out.
All of the above is easily testable, and every time you get into a car that's gotten hot by sitting in the sun, you are witnessing the greenhouse effect in action.
If I may offer a suggestion (and I mean this sincerely, not as an attempt to be insulting), one of the most important things you can know is what you don't know. You clearly know almost nothing about the science of climate change and the evidence supporting it, yet you seem to believe that you know a lot about it. You don't. Making false claims and throwing out insults about "wooly-minded AGW believers" who actually know far more than you does nothing useful: not for you, not for them, not for society. You owe it to yourself to be better than that.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
The sun's rays hit the earth. the earth translates the radiation in to infrared. CO2 absorbs infrared and heats up. Thus, a warmer planet. Like a car in the parking lot allows sunlight in, but doesn't let heat out. Wikipedia article. Rather than complain that no one can explain it to you, maybe you should try explaining it to yourself?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth.
Um, congrats? Hence why I said the global temps are near record warmth. Yes, some areas of the globe are experiencing cooler temps, but overall the temps are above average.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them.
Huh? Why the hell would AGW have an explanation for solar activity? Especially solar activity that happened centuries ago?
You are confusing AGW with Heliophyisics. They are two very different topics.
CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not.
When? During the solar minima? If CO2 levels were relatively constant and solar output decreases, what on earth would make you think that temps would stay constant?
You're just making shit up. AGW is a recent phenomena. AGW is not historical nor paleoclimatology. Before you start making claims like this you may want to look at the research. Otherwise you just sound like an idiot.
Something else is going on. Exactly what is the great question.
In regards to what? Solar activity? We know relatively little about the sun, mainly because we can't get a good look at it's internal mechanics. Then again, as I've said before, heliophysics is an entirely separate branch of study.
If you're talking about climatology, then where is your proof that something else is going on? There's an entire world out there waiting for your genius insight to show why all the current research is wrong and you are right.
Until you have something more substantial than idle speculation and gut feeling, I think I'll side with the mountains of evidence and research.
Apparently, "stable temperatures" and "interglacial" do not go together.
So, you're basically saying that climate scientists are idiots? That none of them have stopped to analyze previous periods and the climatological factors to get a better handle on the current situation? That none of them have looked at the solar records, or have bothered to take into account any of the most basic fucking facts in climate science? Are you really that ignorant about the climate sciences?
You "pointing out" these things to climatologists would be like me pointing out using a keyboard to someone on Slashdot. Let me know when you have some real research to contribute to the discussion, preferably in the form of a peer reviewed science article.
~X~
The thing that concerns me about all this "little ice age" business is what happens when it *ends* and we've been keeping temperatures artificually high through the greenhouse effect. Sure, that might make for a relatively nice few decades or evena century or two of what should be cold weather, but it will also mean skyrocketing temperatures once insolation (energy from the sun) returns to normal levels. What will we do then?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
What will we do then?
We'll use our many decades of increased science and engineering to fix the problem. ;-)
Think how far we've come with aviation since 1940 for instance....
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Let's see what happens in the next couple of years. If the peak is supposed to happen in 2012 and we are looking at uncharacteristic low activity now, what will the shape of the activity lines show us? There are multiple possibilities and catastrophy theory suggests a violent outcome is not out of the question, but the probability is low. From the comments, I will agree the weather this year has been strange with record lows and highs all over the place and some at the same place. Right now, Florida is just getting over an early cold snap that threatens their agriculture while central and south Texas is unusually warm with some places in the eighties. New England and Europe are both suffering from the cold while, at the same time, Greenland and Ice Land are both well above their average temperatures for the same period. For what it is worth, here in Utah, my heating bill more than doubled from November to December and the December consumption was higher than the previous year by about seven percent. The Summer was cooler and late enough to trash my garden schedule. If this continues, I'll have to build green houses.
CO2 absorbs infrared and heats up.
More so than any of the other gases in the atmosphere? How?
Yes, CO2 absorbs infrared, more than O2 and N2. As to how... Do you know how light/radiation works at all? Do you know why the sky is blue or why a black object in the sun heats up faster than a white one? Because it doesn't seem like it. If you don't know that, how can you argue about global warming at all?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Do you know why the sky is blue or why a black object in the sun heats up faster than a white one?
Yes, I do. None of that has is particularly relevant too, because it doesn't answer my question. Can you explain how carbon dioxide is heated more strongly than nitrogen or oxygen, without invoking your magic carbon sky pixie?
Where do you get It's not anywhere close to being one of the warmest years if you remove the adjustments..."? The data is not that useful without normalization and correction for known errors. If you prefer check out the satellite data for 2010. It's showing higher temperatures this year than the ground station based measurements.
Of course satellite temperature measurements are not measured directly but inferred from the radiation spectrum coming off the Earth.
Absorption spectra aren't relevant? Are you kidding? When have I invoked a "magic carbon sky pixie?" CO2's absorption spectra strongly includes infrared, whereas nitrogen and oxygen doesn't. Like white and black boxes in the sun, the greater the radiation absorption, the faster and hotter the object heats. CO2 absorbs more IR than O2 and N2. This is an innate physical property, due to the configuration of the electrons and nucleus of the atoms involved. More radiation absorbed means more energy, which means heat. How is this a puzzle or unclear?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Good god, at last! Someone who *can* explain the mechanism by which increasing the amount of CO2 can cause the atmosphere to warm up!
It still doesn't mean that human activity is putting much of a dent in atmospheric CO2 levels, though. Frankly I'd be more worried about increasing concentrations of carbonic acid than the tiny amount of additional atmospheric heating caused by the tiny increase in CO2. You've got hot water vapour and you've got hot carbon dioxide; the conditions are perfect for it.
You realize that most of the folks working in Climatology are not climatologist either don't you. The earliest you could get a Degree or PhD in "climatology" was about 2000, so every senior researcher in the field is not really a climatologist.
In other news, they are also not true Scotsman.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
The atmospheric carbon dioxide amount in 1900 was 280 ppm. Today, it is 390 ppm. For something that is supposed to be a closed cycle, that is a crazy increase.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
In 1900 the margin of error was considerably greater. Don't trust any gas concentration values older than about the 1950s. We haven't been good enough at it for long ;-)
Well, yeah, I would take the measurement with a grain of salt, had the measurement been taken in the 1900s. That number was generated recently, from ice cores taken from the Arctic and Antarctic. Air gets trapped in the ice, which can be measured for content. Due to the rather consistent nature of the weather at the poles, you can correlate depth with time. The deeper the air pocket, the older it is.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
A science teacher probably could. Have you ever met one?
Or do you live in one of those places where they aren't allowed, on account of all that thar evillution.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."