The Quiet Sun
From commenter Lori, a story that’s both neat and puzzling. The cycle of sunspot activity we have observed for a while now seems to have stalled for a little while. Generally, we’ve seen sunspot cycles last 11 years with the middle of the cycle showing the greatest amount of activity. Then there’s little activity as the cycle resets itself. What we’ve seen lately is unusual.
The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today’s sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren’t sure why.
“It’s a dead face,” Tsuneta said of the sun’s appearance.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters; They can’t predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.
What does it mean? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. There are some things we can say, though.
1) When scientists say “I don’t know”, it is an opportunity for discovery and not a dead-end.
2) This quiescence is likely the reason for the three-year downturn in global temperatures that we’ve seen. It’s also likely a strong cause for the relative stability in global temperatures we’ve seen over the past decade. It is likely not the only reason, though. We’ve found another piece of the climate puzzle. That should encourage our efforts to find the rest of the pieces and to figure out how they all fit together and in what proportions.
3) The universe is one truly fascinating place. The more you think you have it nailed down, the more it throw surprises your way.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Breaking News: Global Warming Now Includes a Natural Cooling Trend of Ten Years. And the Ten Years Before That, Too.
- Expanding Polar Bear Population Living on Expanding Polar Ice are Now a Threatened Species
- Please Stop the Biofuel Idiocy.
Category: Hey, Mr. Science Guy!, Oh the Climate, It is A-Changin'
You may remember a couple years back, the STEREO satellite was launched to observe the sun. The mission plan was to gather photographs as the sun became gradually more active, over the course of five or six years. So far, disappointment on that score. Fortunately, that wasn't the only objective, and it continues to do good science.
I've been meaning to catch up on what STEREO has been doing. I'd be interested in seeing whether it can shed any light (so to speak) on the relative dormancy of the sun.