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Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?


Science @ NASA
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:02 UTC
Image
© NASA
A helioseismic map of the solar interior. Tilted red-yellow bands trace solar jet streams. Black contours denote sunspot activity. When the jet streams reach a critical latitude around 22 degrees, sunspot activity intensifies.
The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.

At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.

Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.

Comment: This article sounds very much like a public relations attempt to salvage the colossal computer model failures that predicted a super cycle for solar cycle 24.

Recall this recent article on SOTT:

Solar cycle computer model with 98 percent forecasting accuracy a complete failure

The basic reality is that the modelers do not know what is going on. We only understand the science to a given point and beyond that we are learning. The problem is that so many in the scientific community now run on political energy and saving face as long as they can is more important than being honest about what we do and do not know.

This article is being mentioned on other sites as well. Here is a comment from the Watts Up With That site from a leading solar researcher, Leif Svalgaard:
Leif Svalgaard :

This press release is just NASA PR-machine hype. We have not 'solved' the problem. Even if we assume that the 'jetstream' has anything to do with the generation of spots [and I personally think it is the other way around] we have just moved the problem [rather than solving it] because now the question is "why was it slower?" Furthermore the 'critical 22 degrees' is not based on anything other than having happened once before.

What we have is a well-orchestrated CYA attempt: our [i.e. NASA-supported] models [predicting a super-cycle] were thwarted by this strange delay of the oscillation, but are basically correct [I think not].
FYI, 'CYA' is an acronym for Cover Your A##.

And another commenter from the Solar Science blog:
John A :

Wow. Even Leif thinks its a dubious correlation at best.

I have two points to make about predictions about the current Solar Cycle:

1. Predictions about the next solar cycle have been persistently wrong.
2. Solar physicists are ignoring the wrong predictions without explanation rather than dealing with their failures.

It ain't science, folks. Its guessing. One day someone will get lucky and lead an entire science astray.

A more general observation is that predicting the future is exactly what it used to be - very, very difficult to pull off unless you can induce amnesia in your audience or appeal to their venality or both.

I suppose that could be the theme of the blog. It didn't start off that way, but I'm depressed that solar physicists don't appear to be addressing the failures of their models.
You can search SOTT for 'sunspot' or 'solar' and read many articles and papers on what is currently up with the sun.

Here is a good place to start:

A Cheshire Cat - Will Sunspots disappear entirely by 2015?

      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

US: Midwest storms cause flooding, spawn tornadoes


Associated Press
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:47 UTC
Lightning in Kansas
© Associated Press/Orlin Wagner
Lightning strikes behind a windmill on a farm near Baldwin City, Kansas, Monday, June 15, 2009
Another round of storms in the Midwest has damaged homes and businesses, flooded streets and knocked out power to thousands.

In Minnesota, an apparent tornado struck the town of Austin on Wednesday, uprooting trees, knocking down power lines. At least one person was reported with minor injuries.

The National Weather Service said the storm sent debris flying, flipped cars on their sides and sent trees through roofs.

Abercrombie, a small town south of Fargo, N.D., has been overwhelmed by almost 8 inches of rain in 24 hours.

In the small Missouri town of Norborne, straight-line winds from a thunderstorm reached more than 74 mph, knocking down the walls of one buildings and damaging roofs and trees.
      Read More...
Blackbox

Canada: Winter still grips 90 per cent of north - migratory birds can't breed

Robert Alison
Winnipeg Free Press
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:00 UTC
It is the winter that refuses to go away in northern Manitoba and most of the eastern Arctic.

Prolonged cold snowy conditions in the Hudson Bay area are expected to obliterate the breeding season for migratory birds and most other species of wildlife this year.

According to Environment Canada, the spring of 2009 is record-late in the eastern Arctic with virtually 100 per cent snow cover from James Bay north as of June 11.

May temperatures in northern Manitoba were almost four degrees C below the long-term average of -0.7, and in early June, temperatures averaged three degrees below normal.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration images confirm snow and ice blanket all of northern Manitoba, part of northern Ontario and almost all of the eastern Arctic as of June 12. U.S. arieal flight surveys confirm the eastern Arctic has no sign of spring so far.

"I have lived in Churchill since the 1950s, and this the latest spring I have ever seen here," said local resident Pat Penwarden. "The spring of 1962 was almost this bad."

Six-foot snowdrifts blocked Churchill-area roads. A thick blanket of snow, in places three- and four-feet deep, coated 90 per cent of the local taiga in northern Manitoba. Ecotourists, who normally flock to northern Manitoba every June to see birds and other wildlife, cancelled their plans this June "in droves," according to local ecotourist specialists. Snowy conditions are largely to blame.

"It is like a winter landscape," said Ruth Baker, a Michigan tourist who spent June 9 to 12 at Churchill. "I couldn't believe the snowdrifts, like mountains of snow".

Researchers confirm that the lateness of the spring of 2009 dooms local birds to a virtually complete reproductive failure.

Comment: This is a very good article until the last five paragraphs. The worldwide global warming psychological conditioning cannot be threatened by any piece of evidence that may counter the chosen agenda.
Recent late springs in the Hudson Bay area have been more frequent than normal: 2004, 2002, 2000 and 1997.
It should be pointed out that the data shows the planet has been globally cooling for at least 7 years and possibly as much as 10-11 years. (Link), (Link), (Link).

The possibility and even high probability given the data that what lies ahead is more frequent delayed springs in the north due to cooling is not even mentioned.

But, dut da da dah... Global Warming is the cause of course!
According to NOAA scientists, although the Arctic is warming, more frequent annual oscillations in temperature are likely to occur, often resulting in late springs.
Of course. And if there were less snow and earlier springs it would be of course - you got it - global warming. And it would be expected regardless.
"Such major oscillations are part of a bumpy ride toward global warming," said Thomas Karl of the National Climate Center. "For awhile at least this will be the shape of things to come."
If such oscillations increase and spread south and crops fail and there are fuel shortages, it will be because of global warming.
"People often confuse climate with weather, and this spring is a weather phenomenon," said an Environment Canada spokesperson.
This last paragraph is just plain insulting. How are the people to understand anything when the spokes people are so utterly wrong?

We will have to see what the next few years bring us.

      Read More...
Fish

The cephalopods can hear you

Matt Walker
BBC News
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:13 UTC
squid
© NPL
Bigfin Reef squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana).
Do Bigfin reef squid listen out for predatory whales?
Octopus and squid can hear.

The discovery resolves a century-long debate over whether cephalopods, the group of sea creatures that includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses, can hear sounds underwater.

Compared to fish, octopus and squid do not appear to hear particularly well.

But the fact they can hear raises the possibility that these intelligent animals may use sound to catch prey, communicate with one another or listen out for predators.

The question of whether cephalopods can perceive sound has been controversial since the early 20th Century. Some experiments suggested that blind octopus seemed able to locate the sounds produced by boats or by tapping on the outside of a tank.

But most cephalopods lack a gas-filled chamber, such as the swim bladders that fish can use to hear. That suggested they could not detect the pressure wave component of sound.

However, sensory physiologist Hong Young Yan of the Taiwan National Academy of Science in Taipei, Taiwan suspected that octopus and squid might use another organ called the statocyst to register sound.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

A Cheshire Cat - Will Sunspots disappear entirely by 2015?

W. Livingston, M. Penn
Watts Up With That
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:26 UTC
Sun 02/22/2009
© SOHO
Spotless Sun 02/22/2009

Physical conditions in the infrared at 1.5 microns, including maximum magnetic field strength and temperature, have been observed spectroscopically in 1391 sunspots 1990 to 2009 (1). We emphasize the quantitative difference between our IR sunspot measurements and the visible light results from most solar magnetographs employed world-wide. The latter are compromised by scattered light and measure flux, not field strength. A lower limit of ~1800 Gauss is required to form spot umbra. The umbral maximum field strength has declined over the above interval, perhaps because spots have on average diminished in size. The present condition of solar activity minimum has more spotless days than since the 1910s (2). The Cheshire Cat behavior is related to magnetic surface fields often appearing without accompanying dark spots.
      Read More...
Red Flag

Jellyfish Booms Signal Ecosystems Out of Whack

Jerome Cartillier
Discovery News
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:00 UTC
Image
© unknown
Jellyfish Swarms Spell Trouble
The dramatic proliferation of jellyfish in oceans around the world, driven by overfishing and climate change, is a sure sign of ecosystems out of kilter, warn experts.

"Jellyfish are an excellent bellwether for the environment," explains Jacqueline Goy, of the Oceanographic Institute of Paris. "The more jellyfish, the stronger the signal that something has changed."
      Read More...
Fish

Mass dolphin stranding linked to navy exercises

Linda Geddes
New Scientist
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:57 UTC
Image
© Adam Gerrard/SWNS.COM
Twenty-six common dolphins became stranded in estuarine waters they are not normally known to frequent.
An investigation into the UK's largest ever mass stranding of common dolphins has identified military activity as the most probable cause - although no single activity can be definitively linked to the stranding.

Twenty-six common dolphins died after becoming stranded in the Fal Estuary in Cornwall, southwest England on 9 June, 2008, while a similar number were refloated by volunteers. An investigation into the cause of their deaths by Paul Jepson at the Zoological Society of London and his colleagues has ruled out a lengthy list of possible causes.

However, documents obtained under the UK Freedom of Information act have provided researchers with unprecedented access to military records of navy activity in the area. While there is no evidence of physical injury to the dolphins caused by sonar, "what we are left with is a mass stranding and a naval exercise - we have ruled out pretty much everything else," Jepson says.
      Read More...
Alarm Clock

US: Water supplies at risk from fires in dead forests

Joan Lowy
Associated Press
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:09 UTC
Washington - Water supplies for 33 million people could be endangered if millions of acres of beetle-ravaged forests in the Rocky Mountains catch fire, a U.S. Forest Service official said Tuesday.

Rick Cables, the chief forester for the Rocky Mountain region, told a House panel that the headwaters of the Colorado River, an important water source for residents of 13 states, are in the middle of 2.5 million acres of dead or dying forests in Colorado and southern Wyoming. Severe fires, fueled by these trees, could damage or destroy reservoirs, pipes and other infrastructure that supply water to millions of people in the Rocky Mountain region.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Two 'freak' tornadoes sighted in Ireland

Eimear Ni Bhraonain & Pat Flynn
Irish Independent
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:32 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A mini tornado is captured on a camera phone in Ennis, Co Clare yesterday
Two mini tornadoes have twisted their way through the skies above Ireland in recent days. Stunned witnesses say that the freak weather has appeared in both counties Clare and Roscommon.

Residents in Ennis were amazed to see an apparent mini twister materialise at around 4.40pm yesterday over the Showgrounds area.

One man managed to capture it on his camera phone, but said it dissipated soon afterwards.

Martin Foudy, from Inagh, Co Clare, said: "I was driving along the Kilrush Road and was turning at a junction when I spotted what I am sure was a tornado or twister in the distance.

"There was no great wind where I was at the time but the funnel could be clearly seen beneath a massive black and grey cloud."
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Freak Beijing storm turns day into night


Austalia Broadcast Corporation
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:15 UTC
Beijing storm day turns to night
© ABC News
Day turns to night as a storm sweeps across Beijing in China just before midday on June 16, 2009.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell and ABC cameraman Rob Hill saw day turn into night as a freak storm swept across the capital Beijing today.

"It was pitch black outside and you could see people looking out from the office towers across the road from us," McDonell said.

"In a couple of the photos you can see a clock in the distance showing it was around 11:30 am local time."

The storms were expected to affect western and northern Xinjiang, most part of Inner Mongolia, north-east China and north China.

Today's extreme weather follows yesterday's hail storms across eastern China's Anhui province, which killed 14 people and injured more than 180, AFP reports.
      Read More...
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