Baby, It's Cold Outside
Posted by Lew Rockwell on December 26, 2010 07:39 AM
Writes Alan Caruba:
What do we know as we anticipate the beginning of 2011? We know that this
winter, which began well before the solstice on December 21st, has been
brutal thus far just about everywhere in the northern hemisphere. This
winter and future ones are going to be longer and far more harsh than anyone
living today has ever witnessed. Europe is experiencing the coldest winter
in a hundred years. We will likely see records broken throughout the U.S.
The Earth is well into a Maunder Minimum, a dramatic diminution of solar
output. When the Sun grows quiet, the Earth gets cold. It did this between
1300 and 1850. We could be looking at hundreds of years in which crops will
be affected, reducing food for more than six billion people with whom we
share the planet. That's a recipe for riots and wars.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/74104.html
When is the Solar Minimum?
A panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA believe that sunspot
activity reached a low or solar minimum in December, 2008.
There was a deep lull in solar activity that began around 2007. In 2008
and 2009, the Sun set records for low sunspot counts.
In September, 2009, Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center said,
"We're experiencing the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century." Due to
the weak solar activity, galactic cosmic rays were at record levels.
http://www.almanac.com/content/sunspots-solar-cycle-activity-and-predictions
21st century
The most powerful flare observed by satellite instrumentation began on 4
November 2003 at 19:29 UTC, and saturated instruments for 11 minutes. Region
486 has been estimated to have produced an X-ray flux of X28. Holographic
and visual observations indicate significant activity continued on the far
side of the Sun.
Recent measurements, based also on observation of infra-red spectral
lines, have suggested that sunspot activity may again be disappearing,
possibly leading to a new minimum.[18]From 2007-2009, sunspot levels were
far below average. In 2008, the Sun was spot-free 73 per cent of the time,
extreme even for a solar minimum. Only 1913 was more pronounced, with 85 per
cent of that year clear. The Sun continued to languish through mid-December
2009, when the largest group of sunspots to emerge for several years
appeared. Even then, sunspot levels remained well below normal.[19]
Nasa's 2006 prediction. At 2010/2011 the sunspot count was expected to be
at its maximum, but in reality in 2010 it is still at its minimum.In 2006
NASA made a prediction for the next sunspot maximum, being between 150 and
200 around the year 2011 (30-50% stronger than cycle 23), followed by a weak
maximum at around 2022.[20] [21] The prediction did not come true. Instead,
the sunspot cycle in 2010 is still at its minimum, where it should have been
near its maximum, showing the sun's unusual low activity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
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