Sun's solar wind hits 50-year low The Sun's solar wind output has fallen to the lowest level since "accurate readings" became available, and the drop may have an effect on the natural shielding which protects the solar system from cosmic rays, NASA reports. The data comes from the venerable Ulysses spacecraft, the joint NASA-European Space Agency mission …
Really... it's well known that sun spots have been at an all time low just recently and it looks like they're starting up again.
Sun spots are the source of solar flares, which are the source of solar winds.
No sunspots = no solar winds.
The last time this sort of thing happened, it was shortly followed by a period of increased solar activity. It also seems to coincide with cycles in (government propaganda about) global warming.
Sounds like this could spawn a sequel to 'Sunshine'.
Will Smith and a crew of plucky astronauts take a container of artificial solar particles beyond the orbit of Pluto, and release them to save the Earth! Along the way there is love, death, sex, horror and a diversion to land on Io to refuel with hydrocarbons (leaving one brave soul behind because there was an oxygen leak and there's not enough air left for everybody).
>> The data comes from the venerable Ulysses spacecraft, the joint NASA-European Space
>> Agency mission launched in 1990
Ulysses was originally "International Solar Polar" in which there would be 2 spacecraft (one ESA, one NASA) flying the same orbit but 180deg apart. Of course NASA didn't uphold its end of the bargain (sound familiar??) and ESA said "OK, then we're renaming it and it's OUR mission now" and they run it and do all the science - So it's not really joint anything except in NASA PR releases.
I think it would be interesting for our stupid government not to grant the Soyuz waiver, and watch our manned space program grind to a total halt.
Here we go again. If it gets quiet for a bit we have some more crackpot worrying from NASA about how we are all going to die. Or its the reporters who make it sound that way. As they said its the lowest since records began, which only goes back about 50 years. Im quite it has dipped lower and for longer and and higher as well on many occasions over its millions of years of life.
It can't be that everything is happening in our life time !!!
Alien face, as on reflection it might be all their fault.
No.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=solar+sun+activity+sunspots+site%3Arealclimate.org&spell=1
If it turns out that we're entering a Dalton Minimum type period (decades of low solar activity) it's true that this might reduce the solar output (and thus the watts per-square-meter input into earth's climate.) As anthropogenic greenhouse gases are keeping the temperature above what it would be without them (which is uncontroversial outside crackpot circles), the two effects may cancel each other out to some extent - for the duration of the reduced solar activity. Once the minimum ends the actual temperature returns to the long term trend ("with hilarious consequences!")
It is interesting to note that there are some studies that link cloud formation to cosmic ray activity.
This effect is apparently impossible to predict/ model with any degree of certainty.
Wherever you are on the anthropogenic climate factors, this issue of external effects swamping man-made effects cannot help but give pause to those who would contend that man is the primary and dominating factor.
I personally think that those who assert discernible man-made influences on climate are arrogant in their belief about man's importance.
> Ulysses is finally "succumbing to the harsh environment of space"
> When the results were compared with observations from the previous solar cycle, the strength of the solar wind pressure and the magnetic field embedded in the solar wind were found to have decreased by 20 per cent. The field strength near the spacecraft has decreased by 36 per cent."
So maybe just the respective sensors have degraded sensitivity by 20% and 36% since last time round, perhaps? Did anyone stop to rule out the simple explanation?
Oh, and I found a bug in your comment form script. It's telling me "A title is required", but I've got "2 + 2 = ?" in the title field. Overzealous input sanitisation?
Solar activity has declined slightly over the past three solar cycles - not only magnetic activity but also total emissions.
Over this time, the Earth has experienced a pronounced warming that has continued through the last 10 years.
Wag the Dog TV, produced a documentary claiming the opposite - that decreases in solar activity would decrease the earth's temperature.
This is hardly a surprise as the company was found to have doctored it's graphics, omitted data that was contrary to it's proposition, and knowingly mischaracterized the testimony of some of the scientists it interviewed.
You can see the fraud that was perpetrated in the final result, called "The Global Warming Swindle"
No, not necessarily the same. I'm not a physicist, but has that ever stopped anyone on the intertubes? So here it goes. Particles were not all created equal, as weren't stars... Otherwise why do you think NASA would be worried about the astronauts, if it was all the same?
See, a big, mean star (or other body) can output particles with different levels of energy from our little, mediocre (thankfully for us) Sun -- and to go interstellar distances with some punch, they have to be powerful. Like gamma rays and stuff. And anyone who's watched the Hulk knows that is not something to be joking about when you are chilling in outer space.
I for one welcome our new galactic cosmic ray overlords.
"I personally think that those who assert discernible man-made influences on climate are arrogant in their belief about man's importance."
Why are so many first-graders in this forum? Are the scools all closed, yoofs on the street, profs on strike or what?
Or is Andrew's Global Warming Satirorama attractive to deniers?
He just said he can't take a break from his EMPTY SUIT Campaign (the US economy wasn't important enough either), but he and Biden are definitely "On it", and "All Over it" and it's all W's fault with support from McCain, so "Just Call Me" he says and maybe Osama Obama will take a break from memorizing his debate replies since Obama can't use a TELEPROMPTER!
Obama, an Empty Suit ..... but a pretty Empty Suit.
ad hominem attacks, last refugee of the incompetent.
Never stated that he was a "denier", only questioning the scientific basis for some of the assertions made, although the environmental brown-shirts would have it that anybody disputing thier theory are loons........
"change, not stability, is the defining characteristic of the global climate, with naturally occurring events (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis) much more likely to affect climate than anything humans do"
BTW, the word schools has an "h" in it................
Bang on the money. Very timely find.
Was it just me or was it impossible to read that Universe Today article with anything other than a Patrick Moore narration (albeit silent of course)?
So Solar Cycle 24's starting is it? Whatever that is. Time to save some dosh to watch the northern light show for 2010-2012 maybe. It's meant to be pretty good for then. That's if the global financial institutions don't melt down or bankrupt each and every one of us with their requests for extremely large (and flippin' cheeky) public handouts.
Patrick Moore plays the xylophone...!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK77QSZJ1xs
"Does this mean that some new group of whingers will appear ranting about how we are now not just affecting our planet's o-zone but now also reducing the protective effects of the sun, despite no obvious link?"
Yar, no land lubber. It be the lack of pirates that be doing it. All we pirates know the heliosphere is a noodley appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ye must all pray for forgiveness for breaking the 8 I'd really rather you didn'ts, me hearties, and he shall once more protect us.
Proponents of the androgenic global warming, have denied suggestions by different researchers that indicate an increase in cosmic radiation might contribute to an heating effect (due to water vapour in the atmosphere), rather than the logical expected cooling, by lower solar output. As I remember it the claim was that there was no correlation in the solar data and current atmospheric observations.
Then this information appears that the sun is at it's lowest activity in nearly 50 years, and now has one of the least active cycles ever measured, meanwhile we are supposedly seeing a global heating trend on earth, which strangely enough co-insides with heating on the moons of Jupitor, Saturn and so forth.
Suddenly claims that global temperatures have decreased since 1998 appears, rather than the hype about temperatures have been increasing.. Though every graph I've seen published has shown an increase, odd.
Perhaps the censors on the spacecraft has degraded, perhaps not, but other sources apparently have noted the sun sport observations support the case.
Coincidence ?
Funny did a search for the word 'climate' in that article, not a single hit. Plenty of climate paranoia in the comments though!
Boohoo everything's against us! It's all about taxes!! Actually it's all about me!!! Those enlightened and learned scientists who've prostituted themselves to raise my taxes (unlike those on the other side who've prostituted themselves for profit - Big Oil, High Street 'greenwashers' anyone?) suggesting I modify my own selfish behaviour and juvenile prejudices, how dare they!
Hmm, so much for those who want to equate "global warming" with increased solar activity.
But, as usual, someone will come along and claim the reverse - and who will the public choose to trust ?
Someone might want to make a backup of the records of solar activity - in case some governmental organization decides to fudge the numbers again to correspond to the perception of the day.
Or is it too late for that already ?
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