Sunspots appear again

[JamesT]

I have just clicked on the esas website sun image and note for the first time a couple of sunspots. I understand we have had a particularly quiet period of sun spot activity?
Its usually an 11 year cycle. Does anyone know why it has been so quiet?

James

[SimonAllen]

There is a direct correlation between the frequency of Sunspots and the number of replies in this forum.  So if you want to see more sunspots you need more replies.

[JamesT]

I see!   Then I will wait with baited breath to see if I get any sunspot support from the Forum members!

[David]

Truth be known us humans are quite smug.  We think we understand the Sun but we don't.  We expect the 11 year cycle and get surprised when it does not happen.  Like weather, like climate change our Sun is a complex beast which we do not understand and cannot predict.  As a species we are not quite as clever as we would like Aliens to believe.

Coming back to the Sun (or Earth) experience tells us that the Sun has a strong 22 (11) year cycle.  But experience also tells us that other things happen.  Go back 350 years and we have the Maunder Minimum ~ a period of 70 years when there was virtually no sunspot activity.  And superimposed on the 11 year cycle we seem to have this 70 year cycle where during the 70 years we get the 11 year cycle but the activity over the 70 year cycle increases.

At the Maunder minimum of 1650 - 1720 the Earth went through one of its coldest periods.  In winter the Thames froze over and people walked and drove their horse and carriages across the Thames.  So is there a relation between sunspot activity and climate?  Do we really know enough to be able to dismiss changes in the Sun as causing the current 50 years of global warming?  Or is it really C02?

David

[JamesT]

Hi Dave

Thanks for your response. I am not fully convinced that CO2 emissions are causing global warming either. I understand there were emails leaked recently by global warming scientists which exposed some fixing of data to prove the CO2 theory. I think like you that human beings do not know enough yet to fully understand the complexities of the earth let alone the sun! Even the Ozone layer hole may have been there for centuries and not caused by mankind?

I also read that global warming is increasing the growth of plant life which converts carbon dioxide into oxygen so perhaps global warming is part of a healing cycle and a good thing?

I also hear there is a daft theory going around that the earth is round not flat?
This cannot be true or my bike would always get faster coasting down hill as it went around the earth and it does not?

Butter and eggs used to be good for you when I was kid, now the scientistd say it is bad for you?

You see where I am going with this? Scientists are always changing their minds!

And don't get me started about this hoax about man landing on the moon!


James