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The Sun is Quieter than Normal, but Don't Panic

posted by mrpg on Wednesday March 13 2019, @09:00AM   
from the SPF50 dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The sun is quiet ... very quiet.

In February, for the first time since August 2008, the sun went an entire month without any sunspots.

Sunspots are cooler regions of the sun. How many appear on the sun's surface depends on what cycle the sun is in. Every 11 years our star goes through a maximum, followed by a minimum (the entire magnetic cycle of the sun, when the poles flip, is 22 years).

Over the past three decades, the sun has been consistently dropping in activity. Maximum has been quieter than is typical; minimum has been particularly quiet. And this has caused some to make the false assumption that, as a result, Earth is going to cool.

It all stems from an incident that took place between 1645 and 1715, called the Maunder Minimum, where sunspots all but disappeared. This coincided with the "Little Ice Age" that stretched from 1500 to 1850 in the northern hemisphere. In England, the Thames River froze over; Viking settlers abandoned Greenland.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/solar-activity-1.5049337

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Original Submission

• Global warming, hell freezes over Global warming, hell freezes over (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:06AM (2 children)

  by c0lo (156) on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:06AM (#813646) Journal

  Proof: U.S. Senate Republicans hold rare climate hearing, and more might be coming [sciencemag.org].

  Global warming is “directly impacting our way of life,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the panel.

  Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the top-ranking Democrat, added, “There’s no doubt that humans have made a tremendous impact on what we’re dealing with.”
  ...
  “It is significant that we even had the hearing—particularly when you have two leaders on the committee, both of whom come from fossil fuel states,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said in an interview afterward. “There were some differences on the level of urgency, but I think the underlying premise is that this is something we have to deal with.”

  Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C., had a similar takeaway. The “hearing was notable because it actually occurred,” she said. “It is a good day when a Republican-led committee actually listens to experts about real climate impacts, clean energy and innovation.”

  But Pierce added this caveat: “This wasn’t revolutionary in terms of setting an agenda for bold action, but it was a start.”

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Interesting=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3

• Re:Global warming, hell freezes over Re:Global warming, hell freezes over (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:43AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:43AM (#813661)

  Republicrats just care about who pays them the most, if the "fossil fuel" lobby can't pay up they'll go with the competition.

  Parent

  • Re:Global warming, hell freezes over (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:51AM (#813664)

    What a coincidence, the democans too.

    Parent