BonhommeDeNeige
Chieftain
If you care to stare at the Sun often enough without damaging your eyes you may be able to notice that it appears increasingly bright and very white right now. Indeed, the current lack of sunspot activity over the last 268 days on the Sun is causing the star to heat up more than usual. Sunspots are dark when seen and play an important role in cooling the star, when sunspots stop occurring the star becomes brighter and hotter. Also:
"The sun's million mile-per-hour solar wind inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system. It influences how things work here on Earth and even out at the boundary of our solar system where it meets the galaxy,"
Solar Wind Plasma Output is at a 50-Year Low right now as a consequence of decreased Sunspot activity. Of course, we have only been making real scientific observations for the last 50 years however that does not dispute the fact that Solar Wind or Plasma if you will apparently has important consequences for us within our solar system.
So what does the lack of Sunspot activity mean for us?
Well first it indicates that we are reaching the end of the Modern Maximum. The Modern Maximum refers to the ongoing period of relatively high solar activity that began circa 1950. We define these cycles of activity or patterns on the Sun through Solar Variation. As you can expect, a Minimum would refer to a period of decreased Sunspot activity and would translate to lower temperatures on Earth.
So, temperatures on Earth should be expected to drop about 2 degrees Celsius for the foreseeable future (50-100 years perhaps) if our naive assumptions are correct. Chilling news right? It kinda makes you want to encourage our governments to increase their carbon output so that we can warm the Earth during this period.
But Jokes aside, we must also pay attention to the cycles our sun naturally goes through. Here is where our science gets a little better at predicting things our Sun does despite there being many theories on patterns of behavior.
The big number is 11 and the cycle we are most interested in is Schwabe Cycle.
Over 11 years we have normal periods of increased and decreased solar activity. And we expect sunspot activity should be at its lowest in 11 years by 2012. However, I hypothesize things will be a bit different this time around because we are already at a minimum of Sunspot activity as I mentioned earlier we are nearing the end of the Modern Maximum.
The implications for us are obvious: A dramatically cooler Earth. Unlike the Schwabe Cycle we are accustomed to, a Modern Minimum refers to a significant period of time where there is little sunspot activity, therefore trumping Schwabes pattern or in the least making it a bit irrelevant for the next while.
Irrelevance would be correct of the Schwabe cycle if we ignored the other important prediction this pattern suggests. Every 11 years the magnetic field of the sun reverses as well.
The differential rotation of the Sun's latitudes causes its magnetic field lines to become twisted together over time, causing magnetic field loops to erupt from the Sun's surface and trigger the formation of the Sun's dramatic sunspots and solar prominences.
Are there any consequences for humanity when the poles shift on the sun and it enters a solar minimum at the same time? Probably not and we really don't know. The Earth's poles change as well, but we really have no pattern available to suggest when that would occur either or what the consequences would actually be. We do know that the Sun has an important role to play in the magnetism of everything in our solar system.
A Coronal Mass Ejection (CMJ) contains plasma, protons, and electrons. In fact, features on Saturn's surface (like a giant arch welder dragged across it) indicate it was once struck by a Coronal Mass Ejection we approximate happened about 25,000 years ago.
There is speculation that life on earth was once brought near extinction by a Coronal Mass Ejection. Fortunately and unfortunately, our planet is comprised of heavy metals which would help us act like an anode in the event of a major electrical storm in outer space.
We would see these storms as wavelengths in our sky. When scientist pass electricity through plasma, wavelength-like features appear in the plasma. Such storms have happened before within our existence on this planet.
We have the evidence from ancient, ancient drawings in caves. These early humans who lived in caves, we will call them Cavemen, illustrated for us these storms on their cave walls by drawing these wavelengths and the sun. (I wish I could find you a better picture online, however I am not using any of these illustrations as evidence)
Assuming a CMJ did happen, we can conclude they probably had no choice but to live in caves at the time because of the ensuing electrical storm. Furthermore, it may have been far too cold outside for them to justify living anywhere else because of the solar minimum.
Suggesting a CMJ capable of destroying life on earth would coincide with a shift in the poles and decreased solar activity wouldn't be fair because smaller CMJs happen regularly and of course the Earth did not perish 8 years ago. Our relatively little experience with the patterns of change in our solar system leaves us guessing. I merely return to the fact that catastrophic CMJs have happened before and with plasma output at its lowest and the sun heating up, there is much to watch and pay attention to in our solar system.
Now, who here is gonna go build a house underground or in a cave now?
Thank your for reading!
"The sun's million mile-per-hour solar wind inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system. It influences how things work here on Earth and even out at the boundary of our solar system where it meets the galaxy,"
Solar Wind Plasma Output is at a 50-Year Low right now as a consequence of decreased Sunspot activity. Of course, we have only been making real scientific observations for the last 50 years however that does not dispute the fact that Solar Wind or Plasma if you will apparently has important consequences for us within our solar system.
So what does the lack of Sunspot activity mean for us?
Well first it indicates that we are reaching the end of the Modern Maximum. The Modern Maximum refers to the ongoing period of relatively high solar activity that began circa 1950. We define these cycles of activity or patterns on the Sun through Solar Variation. As you can expect, a Minimum would refer to a period of decreased Sunspot activity and would translate to lower temperatures on Earth.
So, temperatures on Earth should be expected to drop about 2 degrees Celsius for the foreseeable future (50-100 years perhaps) if our naive assumptions are correct. Chilling news right? It kinda makes you want to encourage our governments to increase their carbon output so that we can warm the Earth during this period.
But Jokes aside, we must also pay attention to the cycles our sun naturally goes through. Here is where our science gets a little better at predicting things our Sun does despite there being many theories on patterns of behavior.
Spoiler :
The big number is 11 and the cycle we are most interested in is Schwabe Cycle.
Over 11 years we have normal periods of increased and decreased solar activity. And we expect sunspot activity should be at its lowest in 11 years by 2012. However, I hypothesize things will be a bit different this time around because we are already at a minimum of Sunspot activity as I mentioned earlier we are nearing the end of the Modern Maximum.
The implications for us are obvious: A dramatically cooler Earth. Unlike the Schwabe Cycle we are accustomed to, a Modern Minimum refers to a significant period of time where there is little sunspot activity, therefore trumping Schwabes pattern or in the least making it a bit irrelevant for the next while.
Irrelevance would be correct of the Schwabe cycle if we ignored the other important prediction this pattern suggests. Every 11 years the magnetic field of the sun reverses as well.
The differential rotation of the Sun's latitudes causes its magnetic field lines to become twisted together over time, causing magnetic field loops to erupt from the Sun's surface and trigger the formation of the Sun's dramatic sunspots and solar prominences.
Are there any consequences for humanity when the poles shift on the sun and it enters a solar minimum at the same time? Probably not and we really don't know. The Earth's poles change as well, but we really have no pattern available to suggest when that would occur either or what the consequences would actually be. We do know that the Sun has an important role to play in the magnetism of everything in our solar system.
A Coronal Mass Ejection (CMJ) contains plasma, protons, and electrons. In fact, features on Saturn's surface (like a giant arch welder dragged across it) indicate it was once struck by a Coronal Mass Ejection we approximate happened about 25,000 years ago.
There is speculation that life on earth was once brought near extinction by a Coronal Mass Ejection. Fortunately and unfortunately, our planet is comprised of heavy metals which would help us act like an anode in the event of a major electrical storm in outer space.
We would see these storms as wavelengths in our sky. When scientist pass electricity through plasma, wavelength-like features appear in the plasma. Such storms have happened before within our existence on this planet.
We have the evidence from ancient, ancient drawings in caves. These early humans who lived in caves, we will call them Cavemen, illustrated for us these storms on their cave walls by drawing these wavelengths and the sun. (I wish I could find you a better picture online, however I am not using any of these illustrations as evidence)
Assuming a CMJ did happen, we can conclude they probably had no choice but to live in caves at the time because of the ensuing electrical storm. Furthermore, it may have been far too cold outside for them to justify living anywhere else because of the solar minimum.
Suggesting a CMJ capable of destroying life on earth would coincide with a shift in the poles and decreased solar activity wouldn't be fair because smaller CMJs happen regularly and of course the Earth did not perish 8 years ago. Our relatively little experience with the patterns of change in our solar system leaves us guessing. I merely return to the fact that catastrophic CMJs have happened before and with plasma output at its lowest and the sun heating up, there is much to watch and pay attention to in our solar system.
Now, who here is gonna go build a house underground or in a cave now?
Thank your for reading!
