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The sun is dead!! Mini iceage???

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    plot.jpg?PHPSESSID=r1mceec5j2alfam9d7abipi8o1



    2009 is ending with a flurry of sunspots.if sunspot 1039 holds together just one more day (prediction: it will), the month of December will accumulate a total of 22 spotted days and the final tally for the year will look like above chart.


    Current Stretch: 0 days
    2009 total: 260 days (72%)
    Since 2004: 771 days
    Typical Solar Min: 485 days


    Many thanks during the year for your thoughts and hopefully we shall continue to moniter our shining orb in the new year.

    HAPPY NEW YEAR:)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 96 ✭✭the iceman come


    Found this,(below)maybe a bit dated as the article is May 2008,but it seems we are nowhere near a Maunder minimum which lasted a whopping 70 years!
    Are we concerned? It would seem the maximum is far more likely scenario,and even then do we really know with any certainty what will happen?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset




    Ah yea seen that one a while ago.

    its from summer 2008 so by the end of that year it had broken records and this year was only 7 days off making a new one.

    This is resembling a Dalton minimum now not a maunder minimum

    Alot has been updated and written since that report so yes its gone way past it sell by date.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,853 ✭✭✭ragg


    I really enjoyed this thread - didn't nderstand all of it, but really enjoyed reading about it since - Thanks


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25 QuasarK19


    Happy new year guys.Its been great watching the minimum progress over the year.

    To be honest Im surprised it lasted 771 days,wasnt too sure back in may.

    Thanks guys for all the info and above all thankyou Red for starting this thread and your posts.

    Having seen the havoc this december lets hope if we do get a mini iceage, its a really mild one.

    Cheers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25 QuasarK19


    Looks like the mini iceage is upon us.

    keep warm guys.




  • Too early to make that call imho, we need several cold winters in a row first.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,276 ✭✭✭Alessandra


    Apocalypse now!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25 QuasarK19


    Too early to make that call imho, we need several cold winters in a row first.

    Agreed.However,weve had a few already. Winter 2008 in china ,for instance, was the coldest in 40 years,though it wasnt widely reported.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25 QuasarK19


    Heres something interesting from spaceweather.

    "ISLAND SNOW: Last week when NASA's Terra satellite orbited over Europe, it saw something very unusual. The normally temperate British Isles were completely covered by snow. From an altitude of 420 miles, Terra's MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) camera snapped this picture:"




  • QuasarK19 wrote: »
    Heres something interesting from spaceweather.

    "ISLAND SNOW: Last week when NASA's Terra satellite orbited over Europe, it saw something very unusual. The normally temperate British Isles were completely covered by snow. From an altitude of 420 miles, Terra's MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) camera snapped this picture:"

    That's possibly the first time such an image has been possible, snow has always been restricted to a few regions never the whole island!

    Don't know about 1963 or 1947, no satellite photos then ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25 QuasarK19


    That's possibly the first time such an image has been possible, snow has always been restricted to a few regions never the whole island!

    Don't know about 1963 or 1947, no satellite photos then ;)

    Yeah, 1963 would have been similar,if not worse.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    Since there is renewed interest in whats happening with our sun i'll continue updating this thread.


    latest_eit_171.gif




    As you can see there is lots going on at the moment.

    She is no longer a sleeping giant.

    latest_goes14.png




    solar.gif






    We're gone from days in a row without sunspots to,
    Days in a row with a sunspot .

    27 as of 15/2/2010


    And for those really interested,here a new paper from feb 4 2010.

    http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.0597.pdf



    Summary:
    It has been shown above that low altitude cloud cover closely follows cosmic ray flux; that the galactic cosmic ray flux has the periodicities of the glacial/interglacial cycles; that a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux was coincident with Termination II [the warming that initiated the Eemian, the last interglacial] ; and that the most likely initiator for Termination II was a consequent decrease in Earth’s albedo.

    The temperature of past interglacials was higher than today most likely as a consequence of a lower global albedo due to a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth’s atmosphere.

    In addition, the galactic cosmic ray intensity exhibits a 100 kyr periodicity over the last 200 kyr that is in phase with the glacial terminations of this period.

    Carbon dioxide appears to play a very limited role in setting interglacial temperature.



    6a00d83451e28a69e20120a862175e970b-pi

    .................................................................................................................................................



    Solar Cycle 24 was a late starter, about three and a half years later than the average of the strong cycles in the late 20th century and almost three year later than the weak cycles of the late 19th century. It was almost as late as Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum. The last few months have seen it ramp up relatively rapidly.



    6a00d83451e28a69e2012877580c7c970c-pi




    February 15, 2010

    Dalton Minimum Return Gaining Attention



    Now some of the overlapping solar cycles are attracting solar scientist. The AGU Fall meeting has a session entitled “Aspects and consequences of an unusually deep and long solar minimum. Two hours of video of this session can be accessed here.

    Two of the papers presented had interesting observations with implications for climate. First of all Solanki came to the conclusion that the Sun is leaving its fifty to sixty year long grand maximum of the second half of the 20th century. He had said previously that the Sun was more active in the second half of the 20th century than in the previous 8,000 years. This is his last slide:
    6a00d83451e28a69e2012877a56d01970c-500wi

    McCracken gave a paper on The Effects of Low Solar Activity Upon the Cosmic Radiation and the Interplanetary Magnetic Field over the Past 10,000 years and the Implication for the Future.
    His Concluding Slide:
    6a00d83451e28a69e2012877a5761e970c-500wi


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭thetonynator


    anything interesting happening with the sunspots in the last few weeks???


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    eit304_lab.jpg?PHPSESSID=5gc47op1puui4no1laaqv4kgd5


    This from spaceweather.
    For the seventh day in a row, an enormous magnetic filament is hanging suspended above the surface of the sun's southern hemisphere.


    Solar filaments are unpredictable. If this one collapses and hits the stellar surface, the impact could produce a powerful Hyder flare.




    And there has only been 2 spotless days this year.


  • Registered Users Posts: 347 ✭✭isle of man


    so with her awake and spitting fire so to speak,
    will that mean things will get warmer around the world in the next year or so.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    Well its much more complicated than that but i'll show some new and old info to help you draw your own conclusion.
    Indirect Effects act to amplify the direct effects significantly

    UV warming through ozone chemistry high up in low and mid latitudes (Shindell at NASA GISS, Labitzke). Though solar irradiance varies only 0.1% over the 11 year cycle, radiation at longer UV wavelengths are known to increase by 6 to 8 percent with still larger changes (factor of two or more) at extremely short UV and X-ray wavelengths (Baldwin and Dunkerton, JAS 2004).

    Labitzke has shown statistically significant differences of temperatures in the lower stratosphere into the middle troposphere with the 11 year solar cycle (warmest at max).

    The sun gave us a good example of this in 2001/02 when in September, a second solar max kicked in with high solar flux that corresponded with a large spike in ultraviolet.



    207_12.gif



    207_13.gif



    207_14.jpg


    The above chart shows correlation between the upper atmosphere heights (proportional directly to temperature) and solar flux/ultraviolet. In 2001/02 winter (January-February) note how the middle atmosphere matched the warming in the low and middle atmosphere in the Labitzke analysis. Below Drew Shindell, climate modeler for James Hansen showed how the low ultraviolet could have cause the cold winters of the Maunder Minimum. His model included ultraviolet and ozone.


    207_15.jpg


    Geomagnetic storms that warm high latitudes (Labitzke, Pyche et al). Here major flares and coronal mass ejections that produce the aurora ionize the atmosphere in the auroral ring about the magnetic pole. That heat works its way down into the middle atmosphere in 10 days to 2 weeks. You can see that warm ring in the following global map on the left two weeks after a major geomagnetic storm.


    207_16.jpg


    Finally an Active sun reduces low cloudiness by diffusing galactic cosmic rays - ion mediated nucleation (Svensmark).


    207_17.jpg


    Note the inverse relationship of cosmic rays (blue) and sunspots (orange) and how low clouds in different latitude bands increase during solar minima when cosmic rays increase and decrease during solar maxima when cosmic rays are diffused. Note below how our cosmic rays have exceeded the previous space age maximum in this super long and quiet solar minimum.


    207_18.gif


    These factors work together to enhance warmth in active solar periods and diminish solar warmth in quiet periods.

    Scaffetta and West (2007) using Total Solar irradiance as a proxy for the total solar effect suggested the sun may account for 69% of the changes since 1900.


    207_19.gif


    Soon (2007) showed how the total solar irradiance correlated with arctic temperatures very well, far better than with carbon dioxide.




    207_20.jpg







    “CERN’s much-anticipated CLOUD experiment has begun, the atom lab says. Using the 50-year-old Proton Synchrotron, the experiment simulates cosmic rays passing through the earth’s atmosphere, and hopes to reveal the extent to which the constant background drizzle of charged particles plays a role in cloud formation. Earlier experiments have suggested that ionisation causes clouds to “seed” – and that ionisation is influenced by the type and quantity of cosmic rays that reach the earth.
    Both the sun and the earth’s magnetic fields act as umbrellas, protecting the surface from the high energy particles, although two particles still reach the surface per second. But small changes in the cosmic ray flux produce significant changes in cloud cover. When fewer cosmic rays reach earth, the planet’s climate is warmer, when more reach earth, the climate cools.

    “So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionisation,” noted Danish scientist Henrik Svesmark. Svensmark has pioneered the research using smaller experiments, but has waited over a decade to see it tested on such a scale.
    Much of the recent interest comes from climate watchers. Clouds are one of the biggest factors in determining global surface temperature.

    The cosmic ray effect – a factor of the background CBR [cosmic background radiation] bombardment itself, and the relative strength of the
    earth and the Sun’s magnetic shields – shows a strong correlation between temperature [and] CBR and is extraordinary. Here’s the relationship over the short term – around 2,000 years.
    sven_northernhemi.jpg
    And here’s the correlation into deep time, with CO2 as a comparison.
    sven_deeptime_490px.jpg
    In addition, “deep freezes” in the Earth’s temperatures have coincided with short-lived but intense bursts of cosmic ray activity. Modulation is thought to reflect the Sun’s passage through spiral arms of the Milky Way, and also the Sun’s oscillation in relation to the plane of the galaxy. The Sun bobs up and down 2.7 times per orbit.”


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭thetonynator


    so thats the theory of the long period of global cooling more or less fúcked.!!!

    thanks for all that info redsunset.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    so thats the theory of the long period of global cooling more or less fúcked.!!!


    Far from it,have you actually read the thread?


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  • Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Is it time to crack open the "others" skulls and feast on the goo inside?


    Yes Kent, yes I think it is...



    I'm staying put down here in sunny Malta... its a bit stormy but its nice and warm :)



    BTW, Great pictures... the rest I am completely baffled by...

    DeV.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭thetonynator


    redsunset wrote: »
    Far from it,have you actually read the thread?

    yeah but not at the same time and i get confused easily . . .

    But now that the sunspots are back doesn't it mean it wont be getting cooler???

    Some of this is too hard for my tiny little brain to cope with . . .:(




  • I've often taken the simplistic view that more sunspots simply mean an increase in solar energy, having looked at some of the stuff that redsunset had posted - it appears to be more to do with the magnetic energy that sunspots disrupt that warm the earth less. No sunspots = stable megnetic fields and more cosmic rays.

    In other words cosmic rays appear to increase cloud cover, reducing the direct heating effect of the sun.

    Or something like that! ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    yeah but not at the same time and i get confused easily . . .

    But now that the sunspots are back doesn't it mean it wont be getting cooler???

    Some of this is too hard for my tiny little brain to cope with . . .:(


    OK alot of the info can be a little over the head for most i guess.

    It's not guaranteed that we will get somewhat cooler,its really a waiting game to see what actually happens or if anything at all.

    I feel something is going on but i only hope i live long enough to see,if anything materialises.

    The scientists are simply trying to get answers to why we had previous mini ice ages and warmer periods and wheather the sun does actually influence it.

    And they do make alot of sense in their findings in like tree rings and icecores to basically look back in time as to what was happening in our atmosphere at x time period.

    If you go back to where i've posted about the Dalton Minimum,you will see that what we are entering closely follows that same period.



    6a00d83451e28a69e2012877580c7c970c-pi


    See how Dalton Minimum showed very little solar max (peak sunspot numbers)and where we are today.


    It might not happen and even the Dalton had sunspots but nothing like what we've experienced in recent sunspot cycles.



    If this period is to stay on a Dalton Minimum course,there will have to be no mental surge in activity on the sun that drives the flux through the roof like what occured in below chart.

    207_12.gif


    Now compare the flux chart today,big difference.Peak is 95 to date so keep an eye on it for spikes,if any.

    solar.gif





    The Maunder Minimum period had little or no sunspots,but we are definately not in that scenario.

    Nobody knows the outcome and that is why scientists are excited to see the long term results.

    Of course theres the whole cosmic ray thing too but i won't get into that now.Its written fairly well in the posts.

    Loads of questions to be answered im afraid ,that will come only very slowly to the scientific community.

    Plenty of skeptics too which makes it all the more fun.

    I hope you understand a little better cause i could be here all night going through it all so you get a very tongue and cheek response:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 347 ✭✭isle of man


    o dear god my brain hurts now:eek:

    thanks for the info, will have to read it a few times i think to get to understand it 100% but think i have a sort of idea


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    Yes Elijah Cold Stack its much easier to just follow the sunspot activity aspect of this and let the rest fall into line after.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    Full Halo CME - In the latest Lasco images you can see a Full-Halo CME billowing away from the sun on Sunday. This appears to be a farside event and shoud not have an impact on earth. The source could be a sunspot hiding on the backside of the sun. Check out the image below.



    spots4.jpg



    Solar Update - Sunspot 1051 is currently the only visible sunspot on the face of the sun. Sunspot 1050 has decayed into a spotless plage.
    Solar activity should remain at very low levels.
    Sunspot 1051 (Sunday) spots3.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    redsunset wrote: »
    . The source could be a sunspot hiding on the backside of the sun.

    Ouch, sound painful. :( May I suggest this soothing ointment:

    Preparation-H-Hemorrhoid1.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,693 ✭✭✭Redsunset


    NOT sun related but found this and just sticking it in here,
    600_earth.jpg JPL research scientists concluded the quake shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).


    The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27 was so powerful it may have tipped Earth's axis and shortened the length of a day, scientists at NASA say.

    According to NASA, a complex computer model's preliminary calculation shows that Earth's days should have shortened by 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is a one millionth of a second).
    A large quake shifts enough rock to redistribute the mass of the planet, which can speed its rotation.

    The change won't be noticed in day-to-day life, but is permanent.
    NASA scientist Richard Gross also calculated that the quake moved Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by about eight centimetres.

    The figure axis is not the same as the Earth's north-south axis, of which the Earth rotates around once a day at about 1,600 kilometres per hour. The figure axis is offset from the north-south axis by about 10 metres.
    Melissa Giovanni, a geology professor with the University of Calgary,has said that an earthquake generally has to be at least 8-magnitude to have any recordable impact on the Earth's axis.

    "The result of this particular earthquake, because it broke some a large piece of the (Earth's) crust, its actually moved part of the mass of the Earth," she said. "An earthquake of this size, I think it broke something like 400 kilometres of crust. That amount of crust moving all at once is changing the distribution of the mass of the Earth."

    She added that the Richter scale that measures earthquakes is a base-10 logarithmic scale, meaning the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile was about 20 times larger than the 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Haiti in January.

    Using the same model, NASA says the devastating 9.1 magnitude quake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by seven centimetres.
    NASA says there are two reasons the Chile quake may have affected the figure axis more than the 2004 quake.

    The Chile quake was located further away from the equator, making it more effective in affecting the figure axis.
    Secondly, the fault responsible for the Chile earthquake is at a steeper angle than the fault in the 2004 earthquake. This moves Earth's mass vertically more effectively, making it more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis.

    Scientists compare this to a figure skater's spin. As a figure skater goes into a spin and pulls her arms in, it speeds up her rotations.
    NASA notes that the Earth's day can be increased as well. Filling China's Three-Gorge reservoir, which could hold 40 cubic kilometers of water, would increase the day by 0.06 microseconds.
    Gross said the numbers were preliminary and may change as more information becomes available.

    At least 723 people died in the Chilean quake. More than half a million houses were damaged or destroyed.


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  • Having a rest!

    midi512_blank.gif?PHPSESSID=nbh507l1aae5tod1n0st1i8j53

    (almost) spotless again..


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