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Science & Technology
Is man's "carbon footprint" causing sun spots to disappear?
2009-04-02
April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. 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%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.



Above: The sunspot cycle from 1995 to the present. The jagged curve traces actual sunspot counts. Smooth curves are fits to the data and one forecaster's predictions of future activity. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/MSFC.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#15  SO-called "ALIEN AUTOPSY"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2009-04-02 21:20  

#14  Yeah, Republicans driving SUV's are causing the Red Spot on Jupiter to shrink, too.
Posted by: DMFD   2009-04-02 21:17  

#13  "The only good side to the current economic downturn I see is that there might be a lot less support for their marxist policy solutions to poorly understood climatic phenomena."

'Fraid not, JAB.

The high priests and acolytes around the globe have already said that global recession/depression is no excuse to abandon their policies to put the rest of us in the poorhouse while they live high on the hog "save" earth. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-04-02 21:11  

#12  I don't think they are quite saying C02 has caused this solar minimum. But they sure are missing the point KBK makes. It is perhaps the biggest of the many problems with these politicized climate models.

My favorite sign of ignorance was when the tsunami was blamed on our climate policies. That one did happen.

The thinking that KBK applies, which includes 2nd and 3rd order effects, acknowledges uncertainty and involves complex interactions is beyond the mental ability of the typical environmental leftist. Their motivations range from raw emotion so a sort of retro-pagan religion in which the Hansens of the world are high priests. They lack historical knowledge, logic and basic understanding of the 'scientific method.'

The only good side to the current economic downturn I see is that there might be a lot less support for their marxist policy solutions to poorly understood climatic phenomena.
Posted by: JAB   2009-04-02 19:49  

#11  Missed this one this morning, must have been busy drying my feet from the snow footprint.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2009-04-02 17:10  

#10  Send somebody up there to check it out. Better send them at night though...
Posted by: tu3031   2009-04-02 15:41  

#9  While they're at it, perhaps they can explain just how CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere could possibly affect the fusion reations in the sun's interior.

It just does when you wish for it hard enough. Now click your heels three times.
Posted by: ed   2009-04-02 14:53  

#8  While they're at it, perhaps they can explain just how CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere could possibly affect the fusion reations in the sun's interior.

Why the same way the CO2 levels in Earth atnosphere cause Global Warming on Mars and Venus silly!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-04-02 14:17  

#7  KBK

I love it when you talk dirty with that atmospheric and meteorological language.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2009-04-02 13:48  

#6  The last couple of times we had prolonged periods without sunspots were the Dalton and Maunder Minimums - little mini ice ages.
Posted by: SteveS   2009-04-02 13:26  

#5  Mike:

Exactly right. This is scaremongering aimed at those with no knowledge of science whatsoever.
Posted by: Iblis   2009-04-02 12:06  

#4  The main pint I get is:

They don't know shit about climate.
Posted by: DarthVader   2009-04-02 12:06  

#3  I wonder how many climate change models have solar input as a constant?

All of them. As a constant constant.

But none consider this chain of effects: less solar activity, less solar wind, more incident cosmic rays (particles, actually), more cloud seeding, higher albedo, less energy reaching the troposphere and below.
Posted by: KBK   2009-04-02 10:55  

#2  While they're at it, perhaps they can explain just how CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere could possibly affect the fusion reations in the sun's interior.
Posted by: Mike   2009-04-02 10:54  

#1  The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming
They had to put that in somewhere even though the main point of the article is that we don't understand the sun very well. I wonder how many climate change models have solar input as a constant?
Posted by: Spot   2009-04-02 10:25  

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