Blame it on climate change !!! Either that or it's saving up for 'The Big One' !!!
Our Sun's been using facial scrub: No spots for two weeks
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has spotted nothing for the last two weeks, which is unusual. By “nothing” we mean no Sunspots, the magnetic fluctuations that cause the Sun to form dark spots that produce flares of star-stuff that can rise millions of kilometres into space. Big ones could swallow the Earth, with room left …
COMMENTS
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Friday 24th March 2017 05:17 GMT A_Melbourne
Scientific Papers Predict Cooling In Coming Decades
Good news.
Soon enough the on-going gradual drop in worldwide temperatures will be difficult for the IPCC to fudge.
Scientific Papers Predict Cooling In Coming Decades
I guess the Russians will get the blame - as usual.
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Friday 24th March 2017 09:06 GMT Lars
Re: Scientific Papers Predict Cooling In Coming Decades
Notrickszone like "no spin zone" by the bullshitmountain man O'Reilly one has to assume.
Those seven Russian scientist don't deny climate change but guess it could all be about "Cosmic Ray Flux",
like this "Russian Scientists Dismiss CO2 Forcing, Predict Decades Of Cooling, Connect Cosmic Ray Flux To Climate".
Should we now tell the Chinese to burn more coal and tell people that if they cannot see their way to work to just get a GPS device, preferably one that works indoors too and remember to cough properly.
Just keep the air and the water clean and I am totally happy with the climate change and will dress accordingly.
Then there is of course the question about who is financing this Notrickszone to reveal all those great scientific stories like:
"Australian Psychologists Now Claim Climate Science Skeptics Are The True Moon-Landing Conspiracy Theorists".
"Dutch Expert: With Trump In Office, Now Safe To Expose The Many Myths Of Climate Alarmism".
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Friday 24th March 2017 09:51 GMT Faux Science Slayer
Solar Constant....is NOT constant....
Not only does Total Solar Insulation vary by distance of 3% by elipitcal Eart orbit, but radiation is a
function of square of distance, so orbit causes 10% TSI. What climaclownology ignores is variable
particle, solar rays, see "Lukewarm Lemmings and the Lysenko Larceny" at FauxScienceSlayer
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Friday 24th March 2017 11:18 GMT David Harper 1
Re: Solar Constant....is NOT constant....
Uh-oh. Major maths fail. You don't square the percentage variation. You double it*, hence a 3% change in distance between perihelion and aphelion translated to a 6% change in total solar insolation (NB spelling!).
* Because (1 + x)^2 = 1 + 2 x + x^2, which for small x is near enough 1 + 2 x
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Friday 24th March 2017 13:07 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Solar Constant....is NOT constant....
particle, solar rays, see blah, blah blah, output of fevered imagination with no basis in reality" at FauxScienceSlayer
Anyone who refers to himself in the 3rd person[1] is very unlikely to be a credible or authoritative source..
[1] See Donald, Trump.
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Friday 24th March 2017 10:08 GMT Michael H.F. Wilkinson
I have been keeping tabs on sunspots for quite a while, and the last minimum was way deeper than I have ever seen in almost 40 years of observing. The current minimum looks set to get very deep as well. I know several amateur astronomers who wonder if it currently makes sense to invest in (expensive) H-alpha or Ca-K filters at this point in time. I look at it this way: If a new Maunder minimum is imminent, we will be the first to be able to observe that in great detail. If not, we can carry on observing interesting detail.
BTW, one small sunspot group was visible in my shots from yesterday in white light and Ca-K (393nm). Still very quiet though
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Friday 24th March 2017 11:16 GMT jake
Re: What am I going to blame random outages on now?
I use "stray cosmic ray(s)" ... works for almost everything (~85%) when you have a need to quiet the peanut gallery for an hour or so while you
nip off down the pubhave a think ... "We're waiting on the results of the Perk Test" works for another ~15% ,,, you're on your own for the final ~1%; how do you think I make the big bucks?
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Friday 24th March 2017 12:55 GMT PNGuinn
Re: Just a reminder, everyone!
Nooo - I'd NEVER be so irresponsible to recommend that.
Any fule kno that all solar energy receptors should be shielded with at least 1 foot thick lead cover.
What really bothers me is what thickness of tinfoil hat do I need to be safe out there?
Take care on the beach, now.
>> thanks, mine's the one with the 5l drum of factor 95 sunscreen in the pocketses.
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Friday 24th March 2017 13:59 GMT Alistair
sunspots missing. News at 11.
The sun has received official notification from the office of the president of the united states that global warming is a liberal left myth. Officials at Sol are in emergency meetings to determine why in the universe some country elected this moron. Sunspots will resume normal process when the officers in charge of managing the venting systems are back at their desks.
/S
Kudo's Michael W. et al - I've a couple of barely passable telescopes (for the kids) but haven't time nor the location to get in any really nice telescopy work. I hope to in the future, from a space with less light pollution (yes, I'm more a star field kinda person)
Much could be said about 'climate change' here. All I'll note is that in the 3+ billion years this ball has been floating around dear old Sol, we've seen some pretty drastic climate changes. They will continue. W(he)(ea)ther or not there are sunspots.
<please note the sark tag!>
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Friday 24th March 2017 15:00 GMT dlc.usa
Not As Usual
The article is totally oblivious how remarkably minimal the past maximum was. It started late, didn't get very high, and abated earlier than has been typical. Scientists are still trying to understand it. The Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_maximum is rather helpful.
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Friday 24th March 2017 15:42 GMT Spudley
Re: Not As Usual
The article is totally oblivious how remarkably minimal the past maximum was. It started late, didn't get very high, and abated earlier than has been typical. Scientists are still trying to understand it.
I'm sure they find it puzzling, but when you've only got 200 years of data on an 11-year cycle, that's less than only 18 cycles of data. For a star that has been shining for billions of years. They can't possibly know whether the 11-year cycle is really as predictable as they think, or that there aren't larger cycles that they don't know about.
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Monday 27th March 2017 09:48 GMT Cuddles
Re: Not As Usual
"when you've only got 200 years of data on an 11-year cycle, that's less than only 18 cycles of data"
Except we have proxy measurements of sunspots going back thousands of years, records of direct observations going back to 800BC or so, and proper observations with telescopes from the 1600s onwards. Obviously not quite up to the same level of detail as modern observations, but plenty to get an idea of general trends over far more than just 200 years.
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Friday 24th March 2017 15:39 GMT davews
The article has a lot of things wrong with it. Firstly, as pointed out, a small sunspot appeared on 22nd March to end the spot free period. Secondly, sunspots are not counted individually, rather the leading figure is the number of spot groups and the second the total number of spots - for instance, if you have 4 spots in three groups the sunspot number will be 34. The sunspot number on the date shown in the photo was actually 227, which could be 27 spots in 20 groups or some other similar combination - there certainly are not 110 spots on that day.
Thirdly, the table shows smoothed sunspot numbers for each month based on a 13 month cycle - so the figure of 110 given for February 2014 is calculated based on the actual figures between February 2013 and February 2014. This is why figures after mid 2016 are shown as estimates and those in 2018 estimates based on the estimates.
There is nothing unusual in having a spotless sun at this point of the solar cycle, it has happened many times over the 24 11 year cycles since we started recording them - but this solar minimum, like its maximum, looks set to be much lower than average.