3 new studies about the Sun... maybe the mayans were on to sumthin. or not...

[Orange65]

Ummmm.... No its not. That article from the raleightelegram is fluff and hooey. did you read the article i posted? And the reason it was not released to journalists untill recently was for peer review. Yes, we are supposed to be in an active period right now, but it is severely depressed. the jet streams on the sun are not doing what they should be... and this article is stating that the current solar peak may not occur fully and may even be that the sun goes back to being silent ( without spots)... go to space weather.com and look at the current x-ray outputs of the sun. they are posted daily. this also a summary of 3 different solar studies which have come to similar conclusions from different scientists. they are listed at the bottom of the page.

OK- I reread the press release you posted originally. It gives a synopsis of the results of three papers presented at the Solar Physics Division meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico held from June 12-16 of 2011. The synopsis says that all three papers based on different data (one based on decades of data) points to a reduction in sun spot activity on the sun. The resulting lack of sun spot activity will most likely cause a reduction in the earths atmospheric temperature. (Should shut up a few more of those "the earth is going to melt because of what humans are doing to it" types.) It also notes that if we are entering a time with no sunspots, it is not without precedent. The Maunder Minimum occurred between 1645 and 1715.

As for the peer review process, that is simply a way of other equally educated individuals reading the papers and agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the paper. The distribution of the paper to other scientists is usually done by publishing it in a trade journal that is usually only read by scientists in that field- it is not with held from the general public or media, it is just that those journals are very technical and BORING (I have read more than I care to). The other way papers are peer reviewed is by being presented at conferences just like the one that this press release references... Scientists see a paper when it is published or presented- there is no built in time lag for the general public, it is simply up the press to pick up on these things.

Based on the life cycle of research/ data evaluation/ paper writing/ presenting that I have seen, I would say the data presented in these papers is about 2 years old. I could be wrong on this- it is just an estimation based on my experience.

The article I referenced claims both NOAA and NASA as sources for its information. It does not site any specific names, so who knows? However, given the dynamics of the sun, I would be closer to hanging my hat on the most recent data.

I tried looking for any useful info on Spaceweather.com. I am not an expert on the sun so I wouldn't know if I was looking at a good looking sun or a bad looking sun in the X ray regime. Are there any articles posted there that would give a more recent evaluation of the sun's activities? I looked but did not see any.

[Orange65]

I'm fond of saying "Given the option between warming and cooling, warming is definitely the better option. In just the last 500 years in the few hiccups in warming from volcanic events, the years without summers, crop failures were huge and millions starved to death. Also we don't have ways to stop mile thick glaciers marching down on North America, talk about scraping the land clean."

I agree with you. Warmer means more land is available for farming and the growing seasons are longer. Ice ages are linked to starvation, disease, and plenty of other bad things. Plus if it gets colder, more Yankees will move south! We are overloaded already!

[oldsman496]

OK- I reread the press release you posted originally. As for the peer review process, that is simply a way of other equally educated individuals reading the papers and agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the paper. The distribution of the paper to other scientists is usually done by publishing it in a trade journal that is usually only read by scientists in that field- it is not with held from the general public or media, it is just that those journals are very technical and BORING (I have read more than I care to). The other way papers are peer reviewed is by being presented at conferences just like the one that this press release references... Scientists see a paper when it is published or presented- there is no built in time lag for the general public, it is simply up the press to pick up on these things.


The article I referenced claims both NOAA and NASA as sources for its information. It does not site any specific names, so who knows? However, given the dynamics of the sun, I would be closer to hanging my hat on the most recent data.

I tried looking for any useful info on Spaceweather.com. I am not an expert on the sun so I wouldn't know if I was looking at a good looking sun or a bad looking sun in the X ray regime. Are there any articles posted there that would give a more recent evaluation of the sun's activities? I looked but did not see any.

The delay of publication of these results is demanded by both our Govt. and the Canadian Govt. And when I say publication, I mean a press conference giving the results, to the mass media... yes if you are "in the know" you will hear about it earlier through proffesional channels.

The 3 articles that were used for this summary are listed at the bottom of the page.. but I have been unable to get access to them.. and you are right, they can be VERY boring.

(“Large-Scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle 25?” by Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T.P. Larson, J. Schou & M. J. Thompson.

“A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor” by W. C. Livingston, M. Penn & L. Svalgard.

“Whither Goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona” by R. C. Altrock. )

All I got on them was this - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011SPD....42.1804A
and thats just telling you they won't give ya acess to the complete article... Subscribers only - so to speak...


The x-ray data is a link on the left side of the screen.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html

There is another link to the sloar wind just below this one ... Both links have graphs illustrating what they are measuring. and yeah ya gotta interpret the graph, but they do offer an explanation for readers with another link next to the ones posted here...

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_24h.html