Solar activity

stumuzz · Post by **stumuzz** » 02 Feb 2010, 21:01

Listening to the 6 o'clock news on Radio 4, that said the sun activity is starting up again after a quiet period. This period of inactivity has been considerable.

Listen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qbrdm at 26.11 minutes in.

Some doomsters predict that this means the start of the suns maximum period with an increased risk of magnetic storms; the Daily Hate has this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... years.html

The Times has this http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 012205.ece

But more importantly, will we have a nice summer?!

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » 02 Feb 2010, 21:52

More importantly - for me that is - it means my "Free-Banding" on 11 metres, (27 Meg C.B.

) get's skip conditions going again - no more reliance on EchoLink

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 02 Feb 2010, 22:42

Doooooooom

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 03 Feb 2010, 02:53

They must be short of stories. There is one sunspot showing at the moment, no 1043, (http://spaceweather.com/) and it is one from the new solar cylcle, no 24. When the sun is really active there can be hundreds at any one time.

The peak of sunspot cycle 24, according to NASA (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml), is likely to be 2013 and the activity is likely to peak at a sunspot number of about 70, compared to the last cycle's peak of 120 (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/image ... redict.pdf). This is very low activity comparable to the early 1800s when we had some very cold winters (ask Napoleon about 1812) (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/image ... _Color.pdf)

Hopefully Global Warming will take the edge off the low temperatures but a good summer is unlikely. More likely is a worse one than the last two years.

stumuzz · Post by **stumuzz** » 03 Feb 2010, 08:47

Very detailed post.Thanks.

Shame about the summer!

ziggy12345 · Post by **ziggy12345** » 03 Feb 2010, 09:20

The weather in the UK is greatly influenced by the position of the jet stream. Usually during the early summer months the Azores high builds and pushes the jet stream north allowing warm south west winds to move in from the south.

The Azores high is sensitive to solar radiation and with a year long low sun activity you can expect the high to be reduced in the early part of the summer. This will mean extended rain and cold up to around the middle of May. If there is any hot summer days it will be late around mid August and into September.

However! The Arctic oscillation is in extreme negative phase so the expansion in the winter that bought all the cold weather will snap back allowing warm weather from the south to penetrate further north than usual. This could bring us a nice warm early summer!

If you want to really know what the weather is going to do this summer start counting butterflies in Brazil

Post by **adam2** » 03 Feb 2010, 11:05

Certainly a bit worrying, but IMHO exagerated.
This has been disscused before
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... nt&start=0

And also here
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... gton+event

MrG · Post by **MrG** » 03 Feb 2010, 12:06

so it means we have a wet summer basically

and another amazing mushroom season

every cloud eh...

lets just hope we don't get frost till the end of november again as well then!!

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 03 Feb 2010, 13:30

MrG wrote:so it means we have a wet summer basically

and another amazing mushroom season every cloud eh...

lets just hope we don't get frost till the end of november again as well then!!

mwahaha!

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 03 Feb 2010, 13:50

I am not sure the current solar activity will really make much difference to the summer. I would say that after 3 poor summers we are likely to get a pretty reasonable one to be honest, just working off the law of averages.

But I do think the reduction in solar activity will continue to lower the global temps slightly, as there is simply less solar radiation reaching the earth's surface when the sun is quiet. This can become a cumulative effect, so when the sun enters a quieter phase (potentially for 30 or 40 years) then I would expect the global warming we have seen over the last couple of decades to reverse. If the sun stayed quiet for a long period, we could see global temps dropping noticeably and I would suggest this will be a larger problem than AGW is suggested to be.

Cold weather kills more people than hot weather (within our current global extremes) and if we (UK) went back to the winters of the 1800s we would know all about it!

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 03 Feb 2010, 13:56

snow hope wrote:I would say that after 3 poor summers we are likely to get a pretty reasonable one to be honest, just working off the law of averages.

That implies dependant events. They are probably largely independent.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 03 Feb 2010, 14:39

As are the flips of a coin!

I fact I just flipped a coin 4 times - got 3 heads in a row followed by a tail - which goes to prove we have had 3 bad summers in a row and this summer will be a scorcher!

ziggy12345 · Post by **ziggy12345** » 03 Feb 2010, 15:17

The coin method of weatherf forcast is just as accurate as any I have seen

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 04 Feb 2010, 04:30

Previous sun spot cycles of low solar activity have caused significant cooling and, consequently, bad weather for tens of years running, e.g. the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate

The Dalton Minimum Was shorter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum (Edit - from further reading, 1812 was not particularly cold, apparently)

The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0°C decline over 20 years.[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum.

Whether we are headed for a Dalton type event or a Maunder one, or neither, we will just have to wait and see. But I'm hedging my bets by preparing for the worst, hence two polytunnels and several greenhouses, albeit small ones, and lots of sheep's wool for the loft. If we do get one of these events, hopefully global warming will take the edge off it slightly. With all the extra CO2 we would be pumping into the atmosphere to keep warm, the coming out afterwards might be quite a warm affair.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Feb 2010, 08:11

kenneal wrote:
The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate

Ah, so with the Maunder Minimum coinciding with the middle of the 'Little Ice Age', the cold period clearly led the Minimum. So it's the Little Ice Age that caused the lack of sunspots, presumably by cooling the Sun. Stick that up your denialsphere.