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Mourning the mini-Maunder minimum - November 10, 2008

sunspot.gifIn September, we alliteratively pointed out to you that our Sun had been pretty quiet for a long time – no sunspot activity was seen for 200 days as of September 27th. This news carries with it some history, particularly for those that like to attribute global warming to the Sun.

Well, don't panic. I can now inform you that as things stand today, November 10th, the Sun has been the very image of activity, with five sunspots seen in a month. Maybe it was just holding its breath to see who won the US election.

"I think solar minimum is behind us," says NASA's David Hathaway (Space.com).

Image: NASA

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on November 10, 2008
Categories: Space and astronomy | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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"I think solar minimum is behind us," says NASA's David Hathaway,

http://sidc.oma.be/news/106/wolfjmms.png

If "behind" means "ahead of", then yes. A quiet sun has a smaller solar constant. The coming Northern Hemisphere winter will be cold, wet, and prolonged. 2009's cold and truncated growing season will cause crop failures worldwide. Goodbye Global Warming; hello empirical reality.

Posted by: Uncle Al | November 11, 2008 03:42 PM

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