Scientists don't even know what the next solar cycle will be like - they have very little idea what will happen in 2020. And an ice age would presume that solar activity will remain as low as it's been - not something that would be considered 'likely'.
The article on sunspots doesn't describe them very well. I've never read of sunspots as being violent storms - they are in fact cooler than the rest of the surface (and the whole surface is actually violent), though you have a lot of magnetic activity, which can sometimes cause violent activity such as flares. Also, the sunspots don't actually make the sun hotter, it's the faculae which accompany the sunspots and which are brighter than the average surface brightness and larger in surface area than the sunspots, that cancel out the dimmer sunspots and increase the overall irradiance.
Frankly, the solar minimum is getting annoying. I bought a solar telescope a couple years ago, waiting for the gradual increase to maximum, and the sun is not cooperating. It's still neat to look at, but not what it could be, I'm sure.
(01-21-2009 06:38 PM)NIU007 Wrote: [ -> ]Scientists don't even know what the next solar cycle will be like - they have very little idea what will happen in 2020. And an ice age would presume that solar activity will remain as low as it's been - not something that would be considered 'likely'.
Well when the Scientist can't even determine or agree if the Sun is a "Thermo-Nuclear Heat Reactor or a Cold Fusion Engine", I tend to lose faith in anything they say regarding weather and climate.
I hope they send a bunch of Liberals into the Sun to test whether it is Hot or Cold on the Surface .... this trip may give them a taste of Eternity to come ....
.
(01-21-2009 06:38 PM)NIU007 Wrote: [ -> ]Scientists don't even know what the next solar cycle will be like - they have very little idea what will happen in 2020. And an ice age would presume that solar activity will remain as low as it's been - not something that would be considered 'likely'.
The article on sunspots doesn't describe them very well. I've never read of sunspots as being violent storms - they are in fact cooler than the rest of the surface (and the whole surface is actually violent), though you have a lot of magnetic activity, which can sometimes cause violent activity such as flares. Also, the sunspots don't actually make the sun hotter, it's the faculae which accompany the sunspots and which are brighter than the average surface brightness and larger in surface area than the sunspots, that cancel out the dimmer sunspots and increase the overall irradiance.
Frankly, the solar minimum is getting annoying. I bought a solar telescope a couple years ago, waiting for the gradual increase to maximum, and the sun is not cooperating. It's still neat to look at, but not what it could be, I'm sure.
I believe there is 1 (one) person speculating that sunspots have an inordinate effect on Global Warming through this mechanism:
- Cosmic rays alter cloud formation on the earth
- Sunspots alter the Earths magnetic field
- The alteration in the earth's magnetic field affects the intensity of cosmic rays entering the earth's atmosphere
- Higher cloud formation results in higher reflectivity of the earth (less sunlight reaches the ground)
The first assumption is highly speculative as I understand it. The other elements are well-accepted .. it just depends on whether the solar wind would have enough effect for long enough difference.
There are others that have argued that the external temperature of the sun has increased and this had led to global warming. But, they typically first argued that there was no global warming, then accepted that there was, but it was not man-made, and then reverted to arguing that there isn't any warming at all. This is not much of an improvement over those that view
environmentalism as an ethical system and are thus willing to sacrifice the entire international economic system in order to "think locally act globally" or something along those lines.
To my knowledge, no-one is suggesting that a change in sunspot frequency/intensity and a change in solar output (heat) are coincident or at all related, but the ideas are often conflated by polemicists.
I don't know why but I keep seeing links to climate articles from Investor's Business Daily. Just not sure that's where I'd go to find out about climate.
(01-22-2009 05:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know why but I keep seeing links to climate articles from Investor's Business Daily. Just not sure that's where I'd go to find out about climate.
Well, they have a pretty big stake in the issue. Whether it's real and nothing is done to thwart impending disaster or whether it's an illusion and national economies are derailed in pursuit of thwarting it, there are few issues that are of more importance to economic forecast - war, water resources, terrorism, and ACORN being among those.
That is no indication that such magazines are
good resources for information on the issue.