Vanishing Sunspot Mystery Has Scientists Worried! The Beginning Of The Ice Age?

Sunspots are dark, cool regions with intense magnetic fields or magnetic loops bursting out from the Sun's interior that inhibit convection, forming areas of reduced surface temperature. Visible from Earth even without a telescope sunspots have temperatures of roughly 4,000–4,500 K. However, as the temperatures of the surrounding area are approx 5,800 K, these become clearly visible as dark spots or sunspots.


Sunspot in comparison with the size of the Earth
Courtesy: STEREO

Sunspots, some as large as 80,000 km in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. Over the past decade some researchers say they've found puzzling correlations between changes in the sun's output and weather and climate patterns on Earth.

Now they (Sunspots) are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."

Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry.

"It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission, noting that it is at least a little bit worrisome for scientists. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700. Coincidence? Some scientists say it was, but many worry that it wasn’t.

Global Warming Or The Coming Ice Age?

According to Geophysicist Phil Chapman, pictures from SOHO show that there is no sunspot activity on the sun at present. He also noted that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C! He also cautioned that another mini Ice Age could come without warning.


From the film, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’

Now this 11-year low in Sunspot activity has raised fears among a small but growing number of scientists that rather than getting warmer, the Earth could possibly be about to return to another cooling period. The idea is especially intriguing considering that most of the world is in preparation for global warming.

Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences believes that a lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period based on certain past trends and early records. In fact, he calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the fierce and abrupt cold that can potentially be brought on by inactive solar phases.

So what of ‘Global Warming’? Do scientists have to revisit their predictions and nightmare scenarios painted by them of retreating glaciers and rising sea levels drowning out coastal cities etc? Or is global warming a conspiracy? Or is it that we just don’t know what the heck is happening and imagining devastating scenarios based on inaccurate climate models that we know little or nothing about? Or are we now witnessing the end of a global warming period and the beginning of another ice age?

Time will tell. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds.


Refs:
www.dailygalaxy.com...
www.csmonitor.com...
solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov...
www.guardian.co.uk...

Great Post Mike, star'ed

I completely agree with this theory. I recieved a news article out of the provincal newspaper, on suns spots almost 3 years ago stating the exact same thing. Not many people believed it and were deep into the Global Warming issues.

If it does come to another Ice Age, we are all in for a rude awakening.

thank you for the information and it was well presented too

I agree that we are on a knife edge and the scientists dont know what will happen

if you only take notice of what we are doing on the earth then for sure we can do better regarding pollution and recycling etc

but then the big event sneaks up on us that we have no control over - something caused by the sun - and so that is totally outside what can be predicted

We are indeed at a Solar Minimum, right on schedule. The last was in 1997 and here we are 11 years later with another.



As the chart shows, the prediction for the current minium is very low and the actual values are following quite closely (though the last maximum was higher than predicted). Yes, the predicted and actual sunspot count is quite low, but it is actually quite similar to that of the minimum of 1954 (we are now showing less than 2% fewer) and well within reasonable expectations and margins of error.
ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov...

To worry about a new glacial period would seem to be a bit premature and alarmist, as may be the forecasts of global warming. Our climate is inextricably connect to solar activity as well as what is going on in our atmosphere. The complexity of the interrelationships is difficult to grasp. To attempt to predict what will occur with our current capabilities is nothing more than speculation. Our feeble attempts at modeling what may be, can be useful, but to believe that they represent reality is a reach.

[edit on 25-11-2008 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage
Our climate is inextricably connect to solar activity as well as what is going on in our atmosphere. The complexity of the interrelationships is difficult to grasp. To attempt to predict what will occur with our current capabilities is nothing more than speculation. Our feeble attempts at modeling what may be, can be useful, but to believe that they represent reality is a reach.

An interesting article I read suggests that the Solar System too is undergoing climate change - from Mars to Jupiter and on to Pluto! But you are correct when you say that the complexities are difficult to grasp.

So I'm not off to buy a fur coat for my wife as yet!

Cheers!

www.livescience.com...

Well said Phage.

Even so, it would be fun to watch Al Gore talk about global warming in a parka.

after just watching the movie I really wonder, "if this global warming tendancy" is really happening, and the climate issues are neglected, what will happen if this mini ice age is over?


[edit on 25-11-2008 by BlackCat13]

This is a great interview with Steven Hawking where he says we must begin to move off planet if we are to insure the survival of a billion years of evolution. He says it would be a good idea to do this before the end of this century. Be sure and listen closely to the end of the interview.



I have never understood how people misunderstand the properties of Global Warming in that it will only warm up to a point and then the reverse happens which is a mini ice age at best. It was always prosed clearly as I see things, But you cant make the final mad grab for the pot of gold if you are concerned with global matters which affect life as a whole. I wonder how many multi trillionaires have space craft ready to go in the event of a catastrophic event?

Wasn't this a scare a couple of months back.. the solar cycle has since begun again.

Sunspot marks the start of new solar cycle

Unfortunately for us... a bit of doom and gloom is always nice.

I live in Miami Florida and have had to deal with hurricanes for the past 36 years of my life. Let me tell you something. No one can predict the weather. And if they say they can. They are full of it.

That being said, I don't put that much stock in global warming. And this just might put the nail in the coffin to all the doom and gloom global warming fan boys.
That aside I do think we should be more responsible with all the crap we spew out into the planet. It's definately not healthy.

but wouldnt reduced sunspots indicate a higher temp for the sun? considering I just read that the tibetan glaciars are metling I find it hard to swallow..

It's global anti-warming! We need to subsidize carbon!

Just more ramblings from a scientific establishment that dosen't have a clue...

reply to post by mikesingh


My solution to this coming Ice Age is to drive more miles, burn more oil and other carbon products, raise more cattle, buy my water in bottles, drink only coffee made in oppressed countries and then make the hippies feel guilty until they capitulate.

That ought to balance it all out.

Now where did I put my can of aerosol hair spray?

Originally posted by BlackCat13
after just watching the movie I really wonder, "if this global warming tendancy" is really happening, and the climate issues are neglected, what will happen if this mini ice age is over?

That is exactly what sprung into my mind as soon as I read the OP.

What happens if both theorys are correct? What happens if we are thickening our atmosphere with CO2, creating a green house effect, but the solar minimum triggers a mini ice age, so we continue to neglect the atmosphere issues, then when the ice age is over, we would be in for some serious heating.

So from frozen, to boiling very quickly. :O

Once again this is a false implication concerning sunspots and "cooling." The fact is that the majority of scientists conclude that sunspots have negligible effect on warming/cooling. Recent experiments verify this, but I understand this is just another attempt to be biased against man made climate change.

After reading this post it reminded me of this old T-Z episode. It is a good one to watch. Took a long time to find this exact one. A classic.


www.fanpop.com...

as the global temperature kept rising all over the earth for decades,

which led to the conclusion that irreversable global warming was underway
and recently we were told that the earth was past the point-of-no-return


HAR-HAR-HAR...

in only a Year, the past decade long rising temperature -> has reversed Faster than the temperature had climbed ...

imho, it's all guesswork...
when the sunspots return to generate fluxuations in the magnetosphere and high-altitude ionosphere... which then causes air/cloud/temperature movements we witness as 'weather' patterns...

then All will be well in Mudville...once again !

[edit on 25-11-2008 by St Udio]

reply to post by Phage




If you want to look at the recent sunspot activity data and draw your own conclusions a decent site is:
www.dxlc.com...

Individual graphs of each cycle for 1 to 20 are at: Solar cycles 1-20 www.dxlc.com...

And the last three cycles 21, 22, and 23 can be seen at www.dxlc.com...

A thing of interest to note is the monthly average sunspot activity for minima is normally around 10 or more. The last couple of cycles have had minima of 20 or more and now the average is 5 or less and has been for about a year. Also the last couple of cycles have had very high peak numbers of sunspots compared to the other 20 cycles. There is another cycle Gleissberg cycle, with Low activity cycles occurring about every 100 years (actually 89 if I recall correctly). I think this is why a low activity cycle is predicted for cycle 24. Also low activity minima seems to precede a low activity cycle.


Meanwhile I am sitting here in the sunny south in my long woolies. The average temp has been 4 degrees below normal for the last month and a half. (just did the graph)

Originally posted by Phage

To worry about a new glacial period would seem to be a bit premature and alarmist, as may be the forecasts of global warming. Our climate is inextricably connect to solar activity as well as what is going on in our atmosphere. The complexity of the interrelationships is difficult to grasp. To attempt to predict what will occur with our current capabilities is nothing more than speculation. Our feeble attempts at modeling what may be, can be useful, but to believe that they represent reality is a reach.

[edit on 25-11-2008 by Phage]

...and yet there are those who would risk destroying the worlds economies even more than what we are facing, based on the junk science that spawned the Global Warming fear-mongering campaign. There are also those whose initials are A. G. that would profit greatly from spreading that fear and are willing to lie about the science behind the weak theory. Fear equals profit is all this Global Warming Guru and his disciples care about as their leader jets around the world in his private CO2 generating luxury aircraft pocketing the profits from imaginary carbon credits.

Looks like the good old greenhouse effect might just be a blessing in disguise huh?