Sunspot cycle more dud than radiation flood

By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper, a
prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with
earthly communications, the power grid and modern electronics.
But there's scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut
of big trouble.
So far there have been just a couple minor zits on the face of the sun to
suggest the old cycle is over and the new one is coming.
The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out last
year, the end of Cycle 23 and the beginning of Cycle 24. That would have
put the peak in new sunspot activity around 2012.
But a dud sunspot cycle would not necessarily make it a boring period,
especially for two solar scientists with the Tucson-based National Solar
Observatory.
Two years ago, William Livingston and Matt Penn wrote a paper for the
journal Science predicting that this could not only be a dud sunspot cycle,
but the start of another extended down period in solar activity. It was
based on their analysis of weakening sunspot intensity and said sunspots
might vanish by 2015.
And here's the punch line: That last long-term down period, 1645-1715,
coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of bitter cold winters.
That kind of talk could ruffle some feathers in this time of climate change
and global warming, starring man-made carbon dioxide as the devil.
The paper, rejected in peer review, was never published by Science.
Livingston said he's OK with the rejection.
"I accept what the reviewers said," Livingston said. "'If you are going to
make such statement, you had better have strong evidence.' "
Livingston said their projections were based on observations of a trend in
decreasingly powerful sunspots but reviewers felt it was merely a
statistical argument.
He is aware that some opponents of the prevailing position that climate
change and global warming are the result of manmade activity — greenhouse
gas, specifically carbon dioxide, buildup — are very much interested in the
idea that changes might be related to solar activity.
"But it has not been proven yet," cautioned Livingston, an astronomer
emeritus who still works out of an office at the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory headquarters building on the University of Arizona campus.
"We may have to wait. We may be wrong. (But) the sun is going to entertain
us one way or another," he said.
It's not just a scientific curiosity. There's a lot at stake in predicting
whether sunspot cycles are going to be tame or wild, said Matt Penn of the
National Solar Observatory.
The powerful blasts of radiation that come from solar activity can fry
electronic equipment on Earth; particularly vulnerable are satellites.
The high-energy radiation produced by solar flares travels at near the speed
of light, getting to Earth in just minutes.
But the magnetic effects of a solar flare can take between two and three
days to reach Earth, said Penn, a solar scientist.
In the 1800s, magnetic blasts from intense solar activity induced currents
in telegraph lines in the U.S. and Italy, starting fires and damaging
equipment. Later, it was learned that solar activity affected radio
transmission.
It can also affect the electrical-power grid. A solar tantrum in 1989 blew
transformers and caused a blackout in Canada. And a number of satellites
are thought to have failed from exposure to high-energy blasts from solar
activity.
Satellite operators can turn them away or shut down vulnerable equipment
aboard, and astronauts can use shielding to avoid those blasts.
If Cycle 24 is the big cycle predicted, Penn said, "it's likely we'll have
geomagnetic storms with a lot of sunspots, a lot of flares on the sun."
Penn said even so-called "quiet sun" periods are far from boring because the
sun's "surface consists of Texas-sized hot gas bubbles, which rise upward
at a speed of about a mile per second. The gas cools and falls downward in
narrower channels at about the same speed. That's what we call the 'quiet
sun.'"
"As we get more into the space environment with satellites, GPS and
communication satellites, it means money. People who are about to launch
new communication satellites really want to know how much shielding to put
on their satellites.
"But shielding amounts to weight, which is money. If they want them to last
through (an intense cycle), they're going to want to protect them more, and
that will cost them more."
Penn is the telescope scientist on the McMath-Pierce solar telescope, the
strange angular white thing amid all the white and silver-domed things atop
Kitt Peak. Specifically, Penn works with an instrument that "sees" in the
infrared range to provide information about magnetic activity.
Sometimes, sunspot activity is more than theory or data to him.
Several years ago, he was making an early-morning run from Tucson up to Kitt
Peak to do some solar observing. He noticed his gas gauge was dangerously
low and decided to stop for gas at the convenience store in Three Points.
It was about 5 a.m., and no one was there to take cash, so he tried to use
his credit card to gas up. But the pay-at-the-pump system was down.
Crossing his fingers and driving up the mountain, Penn said he hoped he'd
have enough gas after work to make it back to the station on the way home.
When he got to work, he learned that "a communications satellite had been
damaged by (a solar flare). Lots of communications were dropped that
morning, and my credit-card pay-at-the-pump attempt was one of them."
Though Aimee Norton appreciates the practical benefits of being able to
predict the sun's activity, solving some of the star's mysteries that
relate to the big picture are more compelling. Norton is a program
scientist on the solar observatory's SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term
Investigations of the Sun) facility at Kitt Peak.
"Part of what we're trying to understand is how the magnetic field regulates
or moderates the energy that is transported in the atmosphere," Norton
said. "Because one of the mysteries of the sun is, it's hotter in the upper
atmosphere than (at the surface). So there is energy being transported.
Some people think the magnetic field is somehow magically getting that
energy out there."
Norton said she's hoping for a powerful cycle, noting, "It would give us
more things to do research with — either that or no cycle at all, which
would be similar to the Maunder Minimum."
She said she figures there's little chance of a completely dead cycle but
added, "Wouldn't that be fascinating if the solar system managed to offset
our contribution?"
Because you can't go
• Visit Solar Cycle 24: www.solarcycle24.com/
• Mr. Sunspot's Answer Book:
http://eo.nso.edu/MrSunspot/answerbook/polarity.html
• NASA's Solar Physics: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/whysolar.shtml
• Solar storms: www.solarstorms.org
• National Solar Observatory's Solis solar telescope (Synoptic Optical
Long-term Investigations of the Sun): http://solis.nso.edu
• For more information on sunspots: http://spaceweather.com or
http://science.nasa.gov
• For a list of sometimes spectacular sunspot-induced problems:
http://sw.astron.kharkov.ua/swimpacts.html
â—� Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or at .

--
"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no
better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is being
shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or
no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...9-7583,00.html
http://www.firesociety.com/article/24204/

Good grief, the new sunspot cycle has barely begun. Give it a little time.
It is way too soon to expect any fireworks, even in an exceptional solar
cycle.

Ed, NM2K


"Roger" wrote in message
news:4dCdnSnMYv6XwqvVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@hawaiiantel. net...
Sunspot cycle more dud than radiation flood

By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper, a
prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with
earthly communications, the power grid and modern electronics.
But there's scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut
of big trouble.
So far there have been just a couple minor zits on the face of the sun to
suggest the old cycle is over and the new one is coming.
The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out
last
year, the end of Cycle 23 and the beginning of Cycle 24. That would have
put the peak in new sunspot activity around 2012.
But a dud sunspot cycle would not necessarily make it a boring period,
especially for two solar scientists with the Tucson-based National Solar
Observatory.
Two years ago, William Livingston and Matt Penn wrote a paper for the
journal Science predicting that this could not only be a dud sunspot
cycle,
but the start of another extended down period in solar activity. It was
based on their analysis of weakening sunspot intensity and said sunspots
might vanish by 2015.
And here's the punch line: That last long-term down period, 1645-1715,
coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of bitter cold winters.
That kind of talk could ruffle some feathers in this time of climate
change
and global warming, starring man-made carbon dioxide as the devil.
The paper, rejected in peer review, was never published by Science.
Livingston said he's OK with the rejection.
"I accept what the reviewers said," Livingston said. "'If you are going to
make such statement, you had better have strong evidence.' "
Livingston said their projections were based on observations of a trend in
decreasingly powerful sunspots but reviewers felt it was merely a
statistical argument.
He is aware that some opponents of the prevailing position that climate
change and global warming are the result of manmade activity - greenhouse
gas, specifically carbon dioxide, buildup - are very much interested in
the
idea that changes might be related to solar activity.
"But it has not been proven yet," cautioned Livingston, an astronomer
emeritus who still works out of an office at the National Optical
Astronomy
Observatory headquarters building on the University of Arizona campus.
"We may have to wait. We may be wrong. (But) the sun is going to entertain
us one way or another," he said.
It's not just a scientific curiosity. There's a lot at stake in predicting
whether sunspot cycles are going to be tame or wild, said Matt Penn of the
National Solar Observatory.
The powerful blasts of radiation that come from solar activity can fry
electronic equipment on Earth; particularly vulnerable are satellites.
The high-energy radiation produced by solar flares travels at near the
speed
of light, getting to Earth in just minutes.
But the magnetic effects of a solar flare can take between two and three
days to reach Earth, said Penn, a solar scientist.
In the 1800s, magnetic blasts from intense solar activity induced currents
in telegraph lines in the U.S. and Italy, starting fires and damaging
equipment. Later, it was learned that solar activity affected radio
transmission.
It can also affect the electrical-power grid. A solar tantrum in 1989 blew
transformers and caused a blackout in Canada. And a number of satellites
are thought to have failed from exposure to high-energy blasts from solar
activity.
Satellite operators can turn them away or shut down vulnerable equipment
aboard, and astronauts can use shielding to avoid those blasts.
If Cycle 24 is the big cycle predicted, Penn said, "it's likely we'll have
geomagnetic storms with a lot of sunspots, a lot of flares on the sun."
Penn said even so-called "quiet sun" periods are far from boring because
the
sun's "surface consists of Texas-sized hot gas bubbles, which rise upward
at a speed of about a mile per second. The gas cools and falls downward in
narrower channels at about the same speed. That's what we call the 'quiet
sun.'"
"As we get more into the space environment with satellites, GPS and
communication satellites, it means money. People who are about to launch
new communication satellites really want to know how much shielding to put
on their satellites.
"But shielding amounts to weight, which is money. If they want them to
last
through (an intense cycle), they're going to want to protect them more,
and
that will cost them more."
Penn is the telescope scientist on the McMath-Pierce solar telescope, the
strange angular white thing amid all the white and silver-domed things
atop
Kitt Peak. Specifically, Penn works with an instrument that "sees" in the
infrared range to provide information about magnetic activity.
Sometimes, sunspot activity is more than theory or data to him.
Several years ago, he was making an early-morning run from Tucson up to
Kitt
Peak to do some solar observing. He noticed his gas gauge was dangerously
low and decided to stop for gas at the convenience store in Three Points.
It was about 5 a.m., and no one was there to take cash, so he tried to use
his credit card to gas up. But the pay-at-the-pump system was down.
Crossing his fingers and driving up the mountain, Penn said he hoped he'd
have enough gas after work to make it back to the station on the way home.
When he got to work, he learned that "a communications satellite had been
damaged by (a solar flare). Lots of communications were dropped that
morning, and my credit-card pay-at-the-pump attempt was one of them."
Though Aimee Norton appreciates the practical benefits of being able to
predict the sun's activity, solving some of the star's mysteries that
relate to the big picture are more compelling. Norton is a program
scientist on the solar observatory's SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term
Investigations of the Sun) facility at Kitt Peak.
"Part of what we're trying to understand is how the magnetic field
regulates
or moderates the energy that is transported in the atmosphere," Norton
said. "Because one of the mysteries of the sun is, it's hotter in the
upper
atmosphere than (at the surface). So there is energy being transported.
Some people think the magnetic field is somehow magically getting that
energy out there."
Norton said she's hoping for a powerful cycle, noting, "It would give us
more things to do research with - either that or no cycle at all, which
would be similar to the Maunder Minimum."
She said she figures there's little chance of a completely dead cycle but
added, "Wouldn't that be fascinating if the solar system managed to offset
our contribution?"
Because you can't go
. Visit Solar Cycle 24: www.solarcycle24.com/
. Mr. Sunspot's Answer Book:
http://eo.nso.edu/MrSunspot/answerbook/polarity.html
. NASA's Solar Physics: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/whysolar.shtml
. Solar storms: www.solarstorms.org
. National Solar Observatory's Solis solar telescope (Synoptic Optical
Long-term Investigations of the Sun): http://solis.nso.edu
. For more information on sunspots: http://spaceweather.com or
http://science.nasa.gov
. For a list of sometimes spectacular sunspot-induced problems:
http://sw.astron.kharkov.ua/swimpacts.html
? Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or at .

--
"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no
better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is
being
shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or
no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...9-7583,00.html
http://www.firesociety.com/article/24204/

Ed Cregger wrote:
Good grief, the new sunspot cycle has barely begun. Give it a little time.
It is way too soon to expect any fireworks, even in an exceptional solar
cycle.


Hi Ed,

That whole "report" is more of an attempt to discredit global warming
than it is anything else.



- 73 de Mike N3LI -


....still waiting for a scientific refutation of the heat retaining
effect of increasing percentages of CO2 in gaseous media......

"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...
Ed Cregger wrote:
Good grief, the new sunspot cycle has barely begun. Give it a little
time. It is way too soon to expect any fireworks, even in an exceptional
solar cycle.


Hi Ed,

That whole "report" is more of an attempt to discredit global warming than
it is anything else.



- 73 de Mike N3LI -


-------------

Well, I'm not ready to give up my internal combustion engines just yet.
Neither side has convincing arguments as far as I'm concerned. And I do not
trust the global warming folks at all, since most of their claims are
unprovable and I suspect their leaders' political motives.

The real answer to global warming, assuming it exists and assuming that we
are causing it, is a severe population reduction. Any volunteers?

I didn't think so...G


Ed, NM2K

Michael Coslo wrote:
...still waiting for a scientific refutation of the heat retaining
effect of increasing percentages of CO2 in gaseous media......

Every time it has happened in the past, an ice age
followed. One might argue that a certain level of CO2
actually triggers an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:V...core-petit.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:I...emperature.png
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

"Cecil Moore" wrote in message
...
Michael Coslo wrote:
...still waiting for a scientific refutation of the heat retaining effect
of increasing percentages of CO2 in gaseous media......

Every time it has happened in the past, an ice age
followed. One might argue that a certain level of CO2
actually triggers an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:V...core-petit.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:I...emperature.png
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

----------

Yup. Kind of hard to refute the geological data on that one.

Ed, NM2K

Cecil Moore wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:
...still waiting for a scientific refutation of the heat retaining
effect of increasing percentages of CO2 in gaseous media......

Every time it has happened in the past, an ice age
followed. One might argue that a certain level of CO2
actually triggers an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:V...core-petit.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:I...emperature.png


You are quite possibly correct, Cecil, Interrupting/changing the flow of
ocean currents could indeed have an effect on certain things such as the
Gulf stream. There are plausable scenarios that even in a warming
environment, interruption of the gulf stream could cause the British
Isles to become a lot colder, as much of their temperate climate depends
on that Gulf stream moderating their high latitude temps.

So in any event, hot or cold, we could ber causing the problem! ;^)


- 73 de Mike N3LI -

Ed Cregger wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...
Ed Cregger wrote:
Good grief, the new sunspot cycle has barely begun. Give it a little
time. It is way too soon to expect any fireworks, even in an exceptional
solar cycle.

Hi Ed,

That whole "report" is more of an attempt to discredit global warming than
it is anything else.



- 73 de Mike N3LI -


-------------

Well, I'm not ready to give up my internal combustion engines just yet.
Neither side has convincing arguments as far as I'm concerned. And I do not
trust the global warming folks at all, since most of their claims are
unprovable and I suspect their leaders' political motives.

Smart man, Ed. Listen to the science, not the politicians. When I see
people lining up by party, I tend to discount the politics.

But there is some science here that is fact. The rest is pretty
compelling. What is needed is the disbelievers to come up with equally
valid science to show why the fist fact is being negated.

That is all I ask - No Algore insults or whatever the leeburuls do to
make fun of the other side. Kind of like Moore's law, first person that
brings politics into it loses.

hmmm Coslo's law?? My chance at netnews immortality.... 8^)



The real answer to global warming, assuming it exists and assuming that we
are causing it, is a severe population reduction. Any volunteers?


If I may be so gloomy, Ed, I think Mother Nature is very close to a
self correcting move in that direction. I suspect a global famine in the
not too distant future. In some parts of the world, rice is now costing
more that we pay for beef.

Buy Febreeze stock........


- 73 d eMike N3LI -

Michael Coslo wrote:
So in any event, hot or cold, we could be causing the problem! ;^)

Whatever it is that we are doing, the Martians are
doing the same thing. The melting of the polar
ice cap on Mars is very closely correlated to
the melting of the polar ice cap on Earth.

Seriously, one can see from the temperature graph
history that the temperature was almost 5 degrees F
hotter 130,000 and 325,000 years ago than it is today.
In fact, close examination of the temperature graph
shows that the *average* temperature peaked 8000
years ago and has been falling ever since.

Did you know that Al Gore used computer generated
graphics from "The Day After Tomorrow" for his movie?
Did he think no one would notice? Do you reckon that
is indeed an inconvenient truth?
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

Ed Cregger wrote:
"Cecil Moore" wrote in message
...
Michael Coslo wrote:
...still waiting for a scientific refutation of the heat retaining effect
of increasing percentages of CO2 in gaseous media......
Every time it has happened in the past, an ice age
followed. One might argue that a certain level of CO2
actually triggers an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:V...core-petit.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:I...emperature.png
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

----------

Yup. Kind of hard to refute the geological data on that one.


Only it isn't the CO2 level triggering the ice age, it is one of the
effects of that warming brought about by the increased CO2.

We have to be careful of going into a pick and choose mode. It is
disingenuous at best to say that CO2 warming doesn't exist. But it
causes global cooling.


Heck if it does, that will be one whole awful lot worse than global
warming. Glaciers don't support a whole lot of life..


Now onto that data.

The present interglacial is a tad cooler than some of the others (note
they say "at this site". That is important because it's a big world.
It's been a miserable cold spring here in Pennsylvania. That doesn't
mean it's been miserable and cold everywhere else.

So here we have an apparent cycle.

Is there a reason to attach more credence to benthic foraminfera than to
CO@ heat retention? ( I believe it is fairly compelling, but I'm not
arguing against the point.

Isn't that 5 Million year plot interesting?

Which all brings up one of the most frustrating parts of the GW debate.
The uncertainty. There is so much data coming in. We humans love to look
for patterns, so we tend to find them. Some of the things in those
patterns may be involved, some may not. Certainly in that one plot, the
temperatures have had an upward trend. Coupled with all that is the
random factor. Suppose that a modern day version of the Deccan traps
occurs. At that time, our contribution to atmospheric CO2 and other
greenhouse gases will be moot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

then we are really boinked.




- 73 de Mike N3LI -