the sleeping sun

blank sun
August 28th, today.

But it could be any day of the past seven weeks. For all that time, the face of the sun has looked exactly the same--utterly blank.

According to NOAA sunspot counts, the longest string of blank suns during the current solar minimum was 52 days back in July, Aug. and Sept. of 2008. If the current trend continues for only four more days, the record will shift to 2009. It's likely to happen; the sun remains eerily quiet and there are no sunspots in the offing. Solar minimum is shaping up to be a big event indeed.

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 48 days
2009 total: 190 days (79%)
Since 2004: 701 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days



Where Have All the Sunspots Gone?The two researchers openly wonder whether their findings represent "an omen of long-term sunspot decline, analogous to the Maunder Minimum," the period from 1645-1715 "when through several 11-year periods the sun displayed few if any sunspots," the reason for their curiosity, of course, being that "models of the sun's irradiance suggest that the solar energy input to the earth decreased during that time and that this change in solar activity could explain the low temperatures recorded in Europe during the Little Ice Age, the cold of which (was the most severe of the current interglacial) would likely prove much more deadly.


[edit on 28-8-2009 by meaguire]

I have two thoughts on this.

First, the Sun is burning nicely right now, sort of like a well tuned engine. It doesn't have any stumbles or misfires. It is not burning off any impurities. I think this is a good thing. It is smooth sailing.

Second, my own internal thought process is being replicated in the perfection of the Solar System and has manifested in what will become a total humiliation of Al Gore, Gorebal Warming, and the entire Global Communist Threat/Joke. This does not bode well for the Joker.