Sunspots Gone? An "Inconvenient" Minimum!

[Click on graphic for larger view] Back on January 8th, I posted Where have all the sunspots gone? where I predicted the next solar cycle would peak at a sunspot number of 80 near the end of 2013 or the start of 2014. The experts at NASA had predicted, back in 2006, that the peak would be over 156. By January 2009 they had lowered their prediction to 104. Well, yesterday, NOAA (part of NASA) has a new prediction that is down to 90. Anyone see a pattern here?

We will see if my amateur predictions fare better than those of the best experts our tax money can support!

The above graphic shows how NASA has dropped their predicted sunspot peak number levels from 156+ down to 90, and their predicted peak year has slipped from as early as 2010 to as late as 2013. (A typical government project slips schedule, but the cost usually goes up, not down! It has been said "If the government was in charge of the Sahara desert, in six years there would be a shortage of sand. Well, now there is a shortage of sunspots - but that is a good thing, read on! :^).

I think it is worthwhile to repeat some of the NASA hype back in 2006 when they made their original predictions that have turned out to be so bad: (from: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm March 10, 2006)

"It's official: Solar minimum [end of Cycle #23] has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet. Like the quiet before a storm.

"This week researchers announced that a storm is coming [start of Cycle #24] --the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). 'The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,' she says. ..."

Well, here we are almost at the middle of 2009 and, despite the hype above about the "official" solar minimum having been declared in March 2006, it may not yet have arrived. Indeed, according to http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html (NOAA SWPC - Space Weather Prediction Center, 08 May 2009):

"Minimum will now occur no earlier than August, 2008. For every month beyond March 2008 that minimum slips, it is necessary to shift the prediction curves by the same amount. SWPC commenced doing so in mid-February and will continue to do so, unless or until the prediction panel sets a new predicted date for the time of solar minimum. ..."

THIS IS ALL GOOD NEWS. This solar minimum will be mighty "Inconvenient" (to borrow from our former Vice President) to the Global Warming alarmists. But it is good news for those of us who have been a bit skeptical about our being close to any kind of "tipping point" with respect to Global Warming.

Don't get me wrong, I am still concerned about the rapidly rising levels of CO2, and as I've written here on the Blog many times, I (along with James Hansen the #1 NASA alarmist, but also a wide assortment of pundits and politicos from the right and left) favor a punitive Carbon Tax on all previously sequestered carbon (coal, oil, gas) as a sane alternative to the Cap & Trade scam currently being pushed through Congress.

Reduced sunspot number is historically associated with cooling periods. See the diagram from Wikipedia, on how sunspot activity has varied since the year 1600. According to NASA the period from about 1645 to 1715, called "Maunder Minimum" or "the Little Ice Age", corresponded to a time of little sunspot activity. The "Dalton Minimum" in the early 1800's was a shorter and smaller drop in solar activity. These periods saw considerable Global Cooling.

The period since 1940 has seen relatively higher solar activity that corresponds to the observed Global Warming. I do not expect to see a great deal of cooling in the coming decades, but, if we are in an "Inconvenient" minimum, that will give us the breathing room to implement some conservative actions to control CO2 emissions in a way that will not further wreck the world's economy.

Ira Glickstein

Where have all the sunspots gone? NA-SA search-ing,
Where have all the sunspots go-ne? NASA don't know.
Where have all the sunspots gone? Global Cooling, anyone?
Will NASA ever learn? Will NA-SA ev-er learn?

Where has all the carbon gone? Green-house gas-es,
Where has all the carbon go-ne? Come down as snow!
Where has all the carbon gone? Heating houses, everyone,
Will NASA ever learn? Will NA-SA ev-er learn?

Where has Global Warming gone? Point not tip-ping,
Where has Global Warming go-ne? Its gonna slow.
Where has Global Warming gone? Normal seasons of the Sun,
Will NASA ever learn? Will NA-SA ev-er learn?


As Yogi Berra famously observed, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."