A Sleeping Star? The Sun Just Wont Wake Up...

"Whatever happens", notes NASA sunspot expert David Hathaway, "the sun is behaving in an interesting way and I believe we're about to learn something new."

NASA is reporting that the current solar minimum is so deep, and reflects a measurable decline in magnetic activity on the sun, reducing solar weather activity.

The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.
Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. The
quiet has dragged out for more than two years, prompting some observers to
wonder, are sunspots disappearing?

The loss of solar spots is a significant concern for modern humanity. As we live in an ever increasing technological world, space radiation and magnetic storms play major roles in security and safety of our electronic infrastructure and public health. Being able to predict solar storms and early detection allow some protection from magnetic storm power grid failures.

What is more of a concern is the global impact of a "sleeping sun".

The sun lives on an eleven year "solar cycle" with peak max and min solar activity measuring about 11 years on average between peaks. A typical solar minimum lasts about 485 days... we are currently at 735 days, with 80% of days in 2009 being "blank sun" days, meaning no sunspots. The last time we were in such a deep minimum was 100 years ago... however, the last time the sun has been this blank was during the Maunder Minimum of the 17th and 18th centuries - a 70 year solar minimum. 200 years earlier the sun spent 90 years in the Sporer Minimum. Since the early 20th century the sun has been in what is referred to as the Modern Maximum, after the previously mentioned lull.


Like the subsequent Maunder Minimum, the Spörer Minimum coincided with a time when Earth's climate was colder than average.

December 6, 2001 - Release No. 01-111
THE SUN'S CHILLY IMPACT ON EARTH
A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400's to the 1700's and triggered a "Little Ice Age" in several regions including North America and Europe. Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period...

During the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, from 1645 to 1715, there is believed to have been a decrease in the total energy output from the sun, as indicated by little or no sunspot activity. Known as the Maunder Minimum, astronomers of the time observed only about 50 sunspots for a 30-year period as opposed to a more typical 40-50,000 spots

Did you catch that?

Historical trends indicate that decreased energy output from the sun results in global temperature minimums, also known as "Little Ice Ages", though global warming supporters indicate that the sun has little to nothing to do with global temperatures - remember, to them global and solar activity are constant.

What is more important than arguing the specifics of global temperature variations is the survival of mankind. Food sustains life. Without food, our population will have to decrease to match the available food output. With warmer temperatures a wider variety of foods can be grown at more extreme locations (i.e. further north or south near the poles). As the globe gets cooler, we lose the ability to grow larger and more varied crops. We lose the ability to feed ourselves. Especially since our society is basing it's existence on "grocery" and less on personal farming, we largely lose the ability to independently sustain our way of life.

Another major factor that will impact humanity is increased cosmic radiation. Solar winds, the product of increased activity on the sun, expands our "heliosphere" - a solar system wide area of influence made by our sun. It is within this "sphere" where the sun is the predominant source of space weather, and galactic winds are largely warded off. You wouldn't know it, but we live within the atmosphere of our sun... and when that atmosphere is weakened, cosmic radiation is allowed to reach the earth's atmosphere with greater energy... allowing more cosmic radiation to reach the surface of the earth, increasing our exposure to harmful high energy radiation.

The global cooling trend, as well as NASA's speculation about the potential for a new solar minimum should strike much more fear into the heart of mankind than "Global Warming". Remember one thing: it is not unlikely that the earth will drastically cool. In fact the "zero point" temperature on which the Global Warmers are basing their data is nowhere near the historical average temperature of the earth... see below: If you think the earth will be in a bad way with a 2 degree Celsius increase, imagine a return to "normal" represented by a global temperature decrease of 6 degrees C. F = (9/5)C + 32

Before we tear our economy apart over a theory of global temperature increase, let us first consider the impact of an inactive sun, an increase of cosmic radiation, and a drastically colder planet earth. Mammoth burgers, anyone?