Monday, March 24, 2008

 

Flux Density Value Rises

After weeks and weeks of sub 70 values, the Canadians, with the relatively ancient radio telescope pointed at the sun, have reported over the last two days values of 72 and now 81. There's a new sunspot, but it's from the old 11 year cycle numbered no. 23. Maybe the sun is shaking off the torpor and will shine as the experts have predicted. Keep your fingers crossed. Global warming is touted, falsely, as the killer crisis to come, but it's a new ice age that will actually kill a lot of people with starvation and cold.

I'm happy.

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Monday, February 11, 2008

 

Canadian Flux Density Values

The number is 72. Low. The 24th solar sunspot cycle began over a month ago so no need to panic. Yet. But it bears watching, which I will do.

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

 

Here Comes the Sun, And I Say...


The flux density numbers from Canada regarding the magnetic activity on the sun remain low, in the upper 60s this past few days, and just barely into the low 70s yesterday. The numbers have been in the 60s and 70s for years and years, now and again, in the last century, just as it has in this trough in the sunspot numbers, in the normal 11-year cycle. So the time really to begin to worry will actually be in July, or even later. However, since the solar scientists have announced the start of a new cycle (and sure enough the first sunpot in a while was in January--pictured above), the numbers should be climbing towards triple digits and they are not.

Quiet sun, cold Earth.

Low flux density values generally mean a quiet sun.

You do the math from there.
UPDATE: The scientists had estimated that the new sun spot cycle would start last March and were divided over whether it would be an active one or a quite one. Many agreed that the later the start, the more likely the cycle would be quiet. So, here we are 10 months late with the first sunspot. Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to get colder (well, maybe a little, just to shove falling for the Global Warming Scam down certain people's throats) because getting colder will cause a lot more death and destruction than getting warmer. All of Canada, for example, under a mile of ice is not a good thing. Where would our hockey players come from?

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

 

Bold Prediction of an Iminent New Ice Age

I'm not just being contrarian to say, starting now, global temperatures, as measured from space, will not only fail to rise, as they have been failing to rise during the past near decade, but they will actually start to fall. How can I make such a prediction in the face of universal acceptance of anthropogenic global warming? Easy--the sun is much more than likely to be going into a dim phase now. Let's start at the beginning.

All life depends on the sun and the fact that our water (and even our CO2) is not frozen as ice is because the sun produces sufficient radiation to warm our planet to the point where most water is still liquid. Every change in radiation output of the sun has a corresponding effect back here on Earth. Even though sun spots are dark, the intense radiation around them actually increases net output; so, more sun spots historically has meant higher temperatures and vice versa. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't really matter. Over the past 400,000 years, with close inspection of the Russian's Vostok Station Antarctic ice cores, the rise in CO2 concentration followed the rise in temperature, not the opposite as Nobel Prize winning scientist self promoter All Gore says. So, if the concentration of atmospheric CO2 followed the rise or fall of mean temperatures, that means something else was causing the rise or fall in global temperature. I nominate the sun.

Scientists still debate what was the cause of the Mideval Warm Period (what we used to call the Little Optimum), but nearly everyone seems to be on board with what caused the Little Ice Age, lack of sunspots.The cause was the Maunder Minimum--the period 1645 to 1715 during which there were hardly any sun spots. There have been other minimums (like the Dalton Minimum from 1800 to 1810) which were followed by very cold winters (as Napolean learned to his detriment in Russia in 1812).

The number important in observing the sun's activity (and ultimately heat to Earth) is the flux density value. I have no idea what that is, but I can read what others say. Apparently, the lower the number the lower the magnetic activity and thus the less numbers of sun spots and a cooler sun and then Earth. The scientists note over the normal 11 year sun spot cycles the numbers go generally between 64 and 268. Numbers in the 70s mean really low activity and ultimately less warmth. We're just starting a new cycle, where the number of this flux thing (and then the number of sunspots) should be increasing. So, how can it be ready to get colder if the number of sun spots is about to increase? Well, the Canadian Space Agency (who knew they had one?) is reporting a flux density number of 73.6. That's really low for this point in the cycle. Burrr. I can feel the chill winds start to blow (really--it's darned cold today here in Denver). Unless that value changes quickly and substantially, it may well be going to get a little more chilly soon. That is, of course, unless the CO2 concentration we're pumping up is staving off the already overdue cooling and reglaciation, which is an idea well known to some science fiction writers.

(h/t Brits at Their Best via Instapundit)

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