Our quiet sun
I have been writing that our sun is going through an unusually quiet time and that we may be in for another Maunder Minimum (actually,
Jack Eddy's name has been
sugested for this).
Now, the boffins at NASA are finally talking about this -- from the
London Daily Mail:
The calm before the solar storm? NASA warns 'something unexpected is happening to the Sun'
'Something unexpected' is happening on the Sun, NASA has warned.
This year was supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle.
'Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent,' the space agency says.
They offer an idea:
However, Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA�s Goddard Space Flight Center believes he has a different explanation.
'This is solar maximum,' he says.
'But it looks different from what we expected because it is double-peaked.'
'The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.'
Yeah but we don't really know what is happening. My bet is on the Eddy Minimum -- a couple hundred years of lower than normal solar output and cooler than normal earth temperatures.
Posted by DaveH at March 8, 2013 9:14 PM