The sun is dead!! Mini iceage???

New Year, New cycle 25 sunspot, looks like it won't be around for too long.
The transition between cycles is well underway now.

Yes, I am also of the opinion that a Dalton type minimum is more likely, and not just because it is the maternal family name.
The 200 year pattern looks like it's repeating rather than the 400 year one that is less detailed due to it being based on reconstructions as opposed to actual observations.

Confirmation bias ahead but has there been an upswing in volcanic eruptions this past few months? Or just been reported on more?

Just a little reminder that we are still in the transition phase between cycles.


spaceweather.com

TWO SOLAR CYCLES ACTIVE AT ONCE: Today, there are two active regions on the surface of the sun, places where strong magnetic fields are bubbling up from below. The magnetic polarity of the regions reveals something interesting: Two solar cycles are active at once. One region belongs to old Solar Cycle 24, the other to new Solar Cycle 25. This is normal. Solar cycles always overlap at their boundaries. It's just the latest sign that change is occurring on the sun. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

So is the sun waking up at all then ?

A new sunspot from cycle 25 has appeared.
I suspect that many of these smaller ones wouldn't have been recorded during the Maunder minimum.

Well we're now in the most spotless year of the space age, according to the way spaceweather.com records the sunspots anyway.

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 29 Mar 2020

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 19 days
2020 total: 69 days (78%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)
Updated 29 Mar 2020

Strange, we seem to have been stuck on 77% for about a week now and zero sunspots.

spaceweather.com

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 24 Apr 2020

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 19 days
2020 total: 89 days (77%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)

blanch152 wrote: »

89/115 is 77.39%
88/114 is 77.19%
87/113 is 76.99%
86/112 is 76.78%
85/111 is 76.57%

So for five days in a row, rounding would give 77%.

Just goes to show why resetting the counters at the start of the year is so inaccurate.
It really should be a rolling average over a set number of days.

Could explain why we haven't had the "April Showers" we used to always have up to about 2 or 3 years ago. Sunshine and downpours.

Could explain why now we get winter and straight to Summer.

When you want to fertilise the lawn ye can't because there's no bloody rain!

Deleted User wrote: »

Not exactly sunspot related, but still a good video (robbed from cool vids & Pics forum)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1261182070065451009

What speed is that travelling at!

Deleted User wrote: »

I remember watching a Documentary on this years ago, amazing to be actually live in this time.

So much could influence the Earths climate too such as this and the low solar activity and I really feel the Climatologists and their Global warming religion is just way too narrow minded with Co2 this and Co2 that.

Though in areas with a weak magnetic field could see a much greater instance of skin cancer.

CO2 is just an indicator that CO2 is being produced faster than it is being absorbed, nothing more than that really.

The possible affects of a deep solar minimum are becoming clearer as noted in previous posts, one other factor is the weakening magnetic field has been to allow more radiation to penetrate further into the upper atmosphere and changing cloud formation as well as having what appears to be a stabilising affect on the jet stream.

During the last minimum around 2010, we had two extended periods of stable Arctic jet-stream which resulted on two extended periods of excessively cold weather.

We have just come to the end of a longer than usual period of warm weather.


Could we see an extended period of Arctic air this winter?

You’d know if it was hot and unusual the media would be all over it but cold events are not news worthy.

I would be far more concerned with all the plastic entering the Oceans and the food chain than some CO2 in the Atmosphere + the PM 2.5 from Diesel exhaust, this is having a much greater impact with no sign of the Government tackling this by reducing tax on Petrol and making Diesel much more expensive and also new diesel cars, they still have a Co2 based tax system and this is ridiculous as Co2 is a non toxic gas in the environment and harmless to human health and good for plants, trees etc but oh no they still allow new diesel cars with no extra taxes and penalise the Person buying the cleaner Petrol car, you couldn't make the sh1t up if you tried.

The Global temps have hardly moved in relation to increased Co2, sure weather patterns have changed somewhat but this can be linked to past solar minimum and I expect we will see more and more chaotic weather events the longer the Sun sleeps.

Nabber wrote: »

It's a system based on the efficiency of diesel vs petrol, the deficiency has changed with increased technology particularly in the hybrid market.

No it's not a system based on efficiency it's a system based on a tax created to make Ireland do what the rest of Europe were doing for fear of looking bad for not doing the same.

Nabber wrote: »

France tried to change abbeit after people bought diesel as it was long touted as the lesser evil of combustion engines, I would say in general it wont be too easy for have a model shift from pro diesel to pro petrol.

You're correct it won't be as easy because it would mess everything up, first tax was based on ending CC, next on Co2 and to change it to proper pollution tax would mean another change. So the best way is to electrification, as an ev owner for 5 and a half years I wouldn't go back to Petrol or Diesel again, the range is good enough now, 400 odd kms is the new norm from 100 Kms back in 2011. The cost needs to come down more + there needs to be more EV models to choose + there needs to be a lot more of the fast DC public chargers installed, the Government are not doing much here and the ESB are seriously dragging their heals.

Nabber wrote: »

I'm against taxation to deter consumers, they generally tend to be a working class tax like tobacco and alcohol. If there is justified concern for the nations health then ban them.
There is also no indication that tax deters consumers. Education and alternatives work a whole lot better.

Tax does change people's habits, for instance, over night when the Co2 tax system was introduced there was a substantial shift to much higher polluting diesel cars.

Hybrids are fine but they are old tech, for instance, there is not much difference to Toyota's Hybrid system since 2004, they're still using tiny NiMh batteries, the greatest change has come from tweaking the ICE not from the hybrid system and their main source of power is still the ICE so they consume mostly Petrol.

Electrics on the other hand can use the ever increasing amount of Green electricity on the grid + the electricity doesn't have to be refined from oil like Petrol and diesel which consumes a large amount of energy.

We all know what VW did to fool people into thinking their Diesels were clean, of course this was much more of an issue in the USA where their emissions standards are far higher than in the E.U, it wasn't just VW of course, then we had the car tests, former NEDC which was a farce and allowed the car manufacturers build cars that were much higher polluting than should have been because the test system didn't reflect actual real driving.

The Amount of PM 2.5 and Nox emissions from cars would be incredibly higher in the E.U than allowed in the USA if the car manufacturers selling cars in the E.U had to adhere to the same standards years ago diesels would have been banned years ago.

So my gripe is that there is still nothing happening to stop the sale of these diesel cars in Ireland by making new Diesels taxed much higher, for instance, VRT on new diesels should reflect the fact that they are the most polluting form of transport available, tax on Petrol should be lowered and increased on Diesel.

So many People buying new diesels to drive around town and cities which is the worst place and form of driving for Diesels when they are at their most inefficient and highest polluting.