Climate, Sunspots and The Future

[Hippie3]

lol
such drama-
'past the point of no return'.
are y'all completely unaware of earth's climatic history ?
that Antarctica used to be tropical ?
the 'natural' state of the earth
is significantly warmer than today's
ice-age earth.
this cool period is the aberration,
not the standard.

[FDK]

So on a parallel topic, here in Southern MO. we've had sort of a crappy crop season and from what I'm told it's due to the fact that the soil hasn't gotten warm enough to support good growth, For next year I wont be doing much out of the ordinary but if this trend does indeed continue, I was wondering about the possibility of sinking a recirculatory heating line about 2' or 3' deep in the garden as a means to warm the soil. Likely taking a few insulated rain barrels, linking them and initially relying on direct solar heating to warm the water, having a thermostat controlled pump keep soil temps where desired. (Of course the idea also occoured as a means to allow for perpetual outdoor gardening via. an easy teardown PVC / Vynal sheet greenhouse. )

Thoughts?

[Hippie3]

focus concave mirror on water reservoir to solar heat
that should get the water hot enough to help.

[FDK]

Yep, was also thinking of putting some sort of matte black lining midway in the barrels to absorb as much energy as possible. But worse case scenario I'll just get something akin to giant birdbath heaters. Guess we'll see come 01/10.

[Hippie3]

Daily Sun: 03 Aug 08 A new-cycle sunspot is trying to emerge. A magnetic dipole is present inside the circle, but it has not yet coalesced into a dark sunspot core. Credit: SOHO/MDI

[Hippie3]

guess that last one fizzled out....

Daily Sun: 07 Aug 08 The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI

[wildburr]

Cool thread Hip, literally, little ice age here we come. Kinda hope for our future that we dont end up in another Maunder minnimum. Our children or grandchildren and so on would be in for some hard weather and times.

[oibchip]

Well, looks like a good one showed and we have entered cycle 24

http://spaceweather.com/

[Hippie3]

a bit premature, it's still forming.
last one got that far too
but soon fizzled out.
but i'll cheer it on,
not a real fan of cold weather.

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

but i'll cheer it on,
not a real fan of cold weather.

No Shit! Come on Sunspots!

[wildburr]

From Nasa Website:

New Solar Cycle Sunspot

After many weeks of a blank sun with no sunspots and very few sunspots this entire year, a small new sunspot emerged Sept. 23, 2008. This new spot has both the magnetic orientation and the high-latitude position of a sunspot belonging to the new solar cycle, Cycle 24.

Will this be the harbinger of more solar changes to come and mark the beginnings of a rise in solar activity in the near future? Only time will tell. If the pattern from the record of the past 400 years holds, we can expect that solar activity will begin to show an increase in the next few months.



Image Credit: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT), NASA/ESA

[Jigalow]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

btw
a great site to monitor the sun
and space around us
is http://www.spaceweather.com/ .
today the sun had 0 sunspots.
see...
Attachment 94396

One more

http://www.n3kl.org/

[TVCasualty]

What the hell is going on now?!?

Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

Sept. 23, 2008: In a briefing today at NASA headquarters, solar physicists announced that the solar wind is losing power.

"The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s," says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "This is the weakest it's been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago."


"What we're seeing is a long term trend, a steady decrease in pressure that began sometime in the mid-1990s," explains Arik Posner, NASA's Ulysses Program Scientist in Washington DC.

How unusual is this event?

"It's hard to say. We've only been monitoring solar wind since the early years of the Space Age—from the early 60s to the present," says Posner. "Over that period of time, it's unique. How the event stands out over centuries or millennia, however, is anybody's guess. We don't have data going back that far."

"The solar wind isn't inflating the heliosphere as much as it used to," says McComas. "That means less shielding against cosmic rays."

In addition to weakened solar wind, "Ulysses also finds that the sun's underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s," says Posner. "This reduces natural shielding even more."

Unpublished Ulysses cosmic ray data show that, indeed, high energy (GeV) electrons, a minor but telltale component of cosmic rays around Earth, have jumped in number by about 20%.

But any extra cosmic rays can have consequences. If the trend continues, astronauts on the Moon or en route to Mars would get a higher dose of space radiation. Robotic space probes and satellites in high Earth orbit face an increased risk of instrument malfunctions and reboots due to cosmic ray strikes. Also, there are controversial studies linking cosmic ray fluxes to cloudiness and climate change on Earth. That link may be tested in the years ahead.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2..._solarwind.htm

[Hippie3]

hmm, weird
geting even weirder.
makes me wonder....

[anal-retentive23]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

just in case the shrooms weren't lying...

..shroom-vision told me that
humanity and the earth itself
will be destroyed by the sun..

Timewave Zero was also psychedelic inspiration.
I've read a theory that correlated sunspots with the Mayan Calender.

So, it could be argued that a 2012 synchronicity would be unusual sun spot activity, at around this time.

[SporeCrazy]

Looks like http://www.spaceweather.com says we're back to ZERO.

Daily Sun: 06 Oct 08 - Sunspot 1003 has faded away, bringing the sunspot number back to zero. Credit: SOHO/MDI

[Hippie3]

The sun is going through a peaceful time, Huntsville scientists say, with the lowest number of recorded sunspots marked in 2008 compared to the past 54 years.
The sun has been dormant for 210 days this year

lowest since 1954,
5 full solar cycles.

[Oblivion]

The sun being peacefull huh? Hmmmm, it must have got the good word of our new president.

[Hippie3]

i don't think you read this thread,
the sun's unusual behavior is NOT a good thing,
and if it doesn't start acting normally again
pretty damn soon
humanity may well find itself in a full-blown ice age
in less than 50 years.
btw
why did you inject politics in my thread ?
the election is pretty far off-topic,
and crowing about it is poor form.

[Oblivion]

My red flag went off when I posted my joke, I knew better. Sorry Hippie3. I'll keep a better handle on it.

[Hippie3]

cool
just trying to keep focused on my topic ya know.

[Hippie3]

The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense.

[Sidestreet Getaway]

Was planning a move to Maine... might have to bring it down a few degrees latitude if this keeps up...

[Ras Asad]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...tm?list1275679

woot!!



The Sun Shows Signs of Life
10.07.2008

Nov. 7, 2008: After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life.
"I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
His statement is prompted by an October flurry of sunspots. "Last month we counted five sunspot groups," he says. That may not sound like much, but in a year with record-low numbers of sunspots and long stretches of utter spotlessness, five is significant. "This represents a real increase in solar activity."

[Hippie3]

yeah,
hathaway has been an optimist all along,
we'll see if he's right.

[warriorsoul]

maybe its the calm before the storm ?

[Baphomet]

I know I will look like a tool for posting this without my references, but I will add them to thread later.

I read a NASA or Euro Space Agency report that said every single celestial body in our solar system is currently heating up at exactly the same proportion/ratio to each bodies mass, except the sun which is currently the only body in the solar system that is cooling down, but not proportionally to it's mass.

I read it. I am pretty sure my source was reputable, but I will try to dig it up for you tomorrow, unless one of you guys has the report, and can save me the time.

Strange behaviour eh?

Peace...

[Oblivion]

A new group of sunspots is rapidly growing according to http://www.spaceweather.com/
We'll see if these fizzle out like the last ones.

[Hippie3]

Judging from its high latitude and magnetic polarity, active region 1008 is a member of new Solar Cycle 24. The appearance of 1008 continues a recent trend of increasing new-cycle sunspot counts, which began in Oct. 2008. Solar activity is on the rise

good.

[Ras Asad]

Originally Posted by Baphomet

I know I will look like a tool for posting this without my references, but I will add them to thread later.

I read a NASA or Euro Space Agency report that said every single celestial body in our solar system is currently heating up at exactly the same proportion/ratio to each bodies mass, except the sun which is currently the only body in the solar system that is cooling down, but not proportionally to it's mass.

I read it. I am pretty sure my source was reputable, but I will try to dig it up for you tomorrow, unless one of you guys has the report, and can save me the time.

Strange behaviour eh?

Peace...

Yeah, its happening to all of our Planets in our solar system.

[Hippie3]

evidence ?
linky link ??