Solar awakening: Two sunspots shown / July 4, 2009 / Dave Tyler
During the past four years, the sun has been in a prolonged quiet phase which has led some to claim this signals a period of global cooling. The number of “blank” sunspot days, a measure of overall solar energy output, has been more than 30% above the long-term average.
The year 2008 saw the sun with its lowest number of sunspots for any year in a century. This only fueled the speculation of an impending global cooling scenario.
In fact, slight cooling has been observed since the year 2001, but the link to lower solar activity is inconclusive at best. Shifting ocean patterns are the more likely, or at least primary, cause.
Some climatologists point to the “Maunder Minimum”, a very cold period between 1645 and 1715 when there were virtually no sunspots, as a parallel to the current solar sleep and slight global cooling.
The error in this line of thinking is found by looking at the climate picture outside of the Maunder Minimum itself. Europe and indeed the entire Northern Hemisphere descended into the LIA (Little Ice Age) around 1325 and stayed in this cold period until the 1850s.
History suggests that events as wide ranging as the Plague in 1348 to the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s are linked to this cold spell. Even the Pilgrims suffered the shivers in their first in the New World (1620) because of the LIA.
So this long period of a Big Chill ran well before and after the Maunder Minimum. While it’s certainly possible the sluggish solar period enhanced the cold during the 17th Century, we simply don’t have enough data from that time period to arrive at a solid scientific conclusion. We have very little hard data of ocean temperatures or even surface readings to get a compete picture of what happened back then. Tree rings only give us so much.
It may be a moot point anyway: the solar trend has ramped markedly upward since May 2009 with more and more sunspots erupting on the solar sphere. Time alone will show us whether this trend will continue, but the latest signs of an awakening sun are consistent with new solar research.
You can read more about that here.
Either way, don’t forget the Sunblock when you’re out in the rays for an extended period of time!
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Comments
The solar flux hasn’t ramped up yet so the current activity may fizzle.
What activity?
www.bbso.njit.edu/cgi-bin/ActivityReport
Activity increased some since May, true. To say it increased MARKEDLY is like saying we are seeing great signs of new employment in our economy. I still would like a question answered from the new DENIERS (denier of global cooling). How is it that co2 is still rising and at greater rates than anticipated but temperatures are decreasing? Wasn't that the backbone of the inconvenient truth that us old deniers had to accept? Is that is no longer applicable?
Simply stated, there is a good correlation between sunspot activity and global warming and none for CO2. (says PHIL N. BALDWIN)
Causes cancer... Get a tan and don't overdue it.. Avoid sunblock
Keep throwing stuff at the wall, deniers...something may stick eventually.
I invite all readers to seriously examine the data for themselves. Personal attacks are pointless and don't say much for the writer's character. Furthermore, I am not a "global warming denier" or a "global cooling denier". The goal in my posts is to bring forth data without cherry picking for a favorite viewpoint. Thus, I have mentioned above normal arctic ice earlier in the spring as well as a questionable sunspot/climate connection. I loath the political mess that climate change has become and intend to focus on the data without regard to pundits. Global warming may have a human contribution: but there's also much we don't understand about the ocean/climate interaction and what role if any the sun may play. Newer research does suggest that low solar output (during blank sunspot periods) may be linked to greater influx of cosmic rays which promote more cloud production. All this to say there's a lot we don't know, and models frequently miss the boat too.
Take Care, Steve
"...the latest signs of an awakening sun are consistent with new solar research."
Eh, yeah! The dozens of earlier "new solar research", namely predictions that the sun is about to start its next 11 year solar cycle, has been wrong since 2006, and sooner or later such a prediction will came true. Now the solar cycke length is the longest since the 1797, and this has not been predicted. A prediction isn't btw "new solar research". It's just a hypothesis of what may happen in the immediate future in front of our noses.
It's true that we have little data before the 18th century, but the data we have show a very convincing connection between the sun and the climate.
Okay, a prediction is solar research, but it isn't necessarily new theories explaining what is happening and why. It's more like hypothetical conclusions based on different other hypothesis. If the prediction (finally) comes true that doesn't prove any hypothesis. In particular it doesen't if many predictions about next solar cycle before was wrong.
However I respect your doubt, even if I think Friis-Christensens sunspot length-climate diagram is convincing, and that after 1985 -- when it's not so convincing -- the sun's record magnetic activity until 2001 is consistent with the sun-climate conection through GCR and clouds.
Sorry if I sounded agresssive, and we're on uncertain territory.
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