Fermi telescope finds evidence that positrons, not just electrons, are in storms on Earth
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49288/title/Signature_of_antimatter_detected_in_lightning

An interesting development !

A small amount of UV does get to the surface and this can be a hazard to both animal and plant life.

The majority of UV effect atmospheric chemistry and, for example, different wavelengths of UV are involved with the production or destruction of ozone. There is still much to be learned about what happens in the upper atmosphere.

Your interpretation:
The spots will still be there except they will be invisible. The reason for this is that as the magnetic field decreases, the plasma heats up [rather it is the strong field that inhibits convection and cools the spot]. As the spot heats up, the temperature difference between the spot and the surrounding photosphere becomes smaller and the contrast decreases with the result that it becomes more difficult to see the spot. So, the spot is still there, the magnetic region is still there, …”

I find it rather difficult to describe precisely the L&P effect. The NASA interpretation seems to state that the sunspots cannot form if the magnetic field is lower than 1500 gauss.
Your interpretation is that the sunspots will still be there, but they will be less visible. And they will be very clear on the magnetograms.

The sunspot 1029 has surprised me. I thought that this was a very clear
sunspot with a dark umbra. Livingston has proved that this sunspot has much less contrast than other sunspots several years ago.
- Can we see with our eyes the decrease of contrast in the sunspot 1029 (in comparison with others)?
- What is the gain of saying: “the sunspot is still there but we cannot see it”? Why not say: “There are no sunspots anymore”?
- How can you say that we see on the sun the same activity if the magnetic field if the umbra has decreased from 3000 gauss to 1500 gauss? Is the only explanation that one visible sunspot with an umbra of 3000 gauss has now changed in one or two sunspots with the same area with an umbra of 1500 gauss (not visible to our eyes)?
- I think that even on the magnetograms, we should see a difference. Because the magetogram is sensitive to magnetism, it wil show a clear difference between an umbra of 3500 gauss and an other of 1500 gauss. Will it be possible to say e.g. : We see here [on the magnetogram] a large sunspot but due to the low magnetism of 1500 gauss, we cannot see it in the visible light?

Suggestion: If the L&P trend will become true, it should be very interesting you write a short article for journalists with a clear and instructive explanation of the L&P effect. Otherwise, very unscientific enunciations will be launched and nobody will understand what is happening exactly on the sun.

“The size of the breach took researchers by surprise. ‘We’ve seen things like this before,’ says Raeder, ‘but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind.’”

“To the lay person, this may sound like a quibble, but to a space physicist, it is almost seismic,” says Sibeck. “When I tell my colleagues, most react with skepticism, as if I’m trying to convince them that the sun rises in the west.”

“So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead,” says Sibeck. “This completely overturns our understanding of things.”

“The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself,” says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li’s colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says “1027 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that’s a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible.”

“Like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a big clam, solar magnetic fields draped themselves around the magnetosphere and cracked it open. The cracking was accomplished by means of a process called “magnetic reconnection.” High above Earth’s poles, solar and terrestrial magnetic fields linked up (reconnected) to form conduits for solar wind. Conduits over the Arctic and Antarctic quickly expanded; within minutes they overlapped over Earth’s equator to create the biggest magnetic breach ever recorded by Earth-orbiting spacecraft.”

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/16dec_giantbreach.htm

These statements are all based on observation & measurement on a high order of resolution.

And they are “new evidence and new ideas”.

This evidence was recorded June 3, 2007, new in science terms.

It is not NASA hype or exaggeration.

A breach in the Earth’s magnetic field “four times wider than Earth itself”.

And some, here, claim models from the 1930′s, before the space age, are still correct…go figure?

16 today? Does anyone have an image of 1030 on the 7th of November?
Continuum has not been updated and it is not visible on the GONG Images, flux has not budged, solar wind has dropped and yet today we see 16?

Why are they so adamant to skew the sunspot number so much? Why has 1030 recieved 16 today? This is getting ridiculous.

Hopefully we will get some continuum images to cover 1030, if not the Layman’s Count might have to fall back onto the grey scale images from GONG etc. NOAA’s daily sunspot count and Sunspot numbering system is meaningless really. SIDC who is taken as the world authority are much more conservative in their assessments and wait to the end of the month to put out their report. The Layman’s Count further processes the SIDC count to bring it back to something we can compare with the past.

matt v. (18:32:58) :
Are you saying that the UVB rays that get through after an ozone depletion[ after a solar storm or/and proton event] have a minuscule effect on the planet? All i am asking is could UvB rays do some heating when they get to the surface of the earth?

Perhaps they dont need to get to the surface. Other atmosphere effects and cloud formation as a result of UV could be all we need to regulate TSI.

Why are they so adamant to skew the sunspot number so much? Why has 1030 recieved 16 today? This is getting ridiculous.

If you work for a university, government or private research institution, with financial and other backing, than you are certainly expected to bring new evidence.
If you are an amateur, deprived of all the above, than only hope is to challenge areas where there are uncertainties.
Here, in particular I have in mind mr. vuckevic, whose contributions here and elsewhere, I have followed during several months. He has come up with number of interesting ideas, e.g. sunspot cycles and polar fields formulae, and now a new view of the Earth’s magnetism. He may be totally wrong, but that is not a point, he persists with ideas, despite with all the flak and occasional insult, which appears that he takes in his stride and good humor. Science needs amateurs who put their time and effort in exposing gaps, and on a rare occasions may or may not come up with goods. People like that should be applauded.

“See this:
http://www.ncas.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=446&Itemid=249”

Fascinating video V. Watching the video in your link really illustrates how complex the climate system really is (at least to my layman eyeballs).

Does anyone know of any good tools whereby one could watch historic weather patterns develop and disperse on a global scale?

Glenn (18:23:26) :
except I’m not the one that said you always assume that you’re at fault first. You didn’t.

“I did, and I do. What’s your problem, and why is that such a problem to you that you are mindful of it?”

Doesn’t sound like you assume you are wrong about my being mindful of a “problem”.
I don’t have a problem, Leif. But I could ask you the same thing about what you regularly throw at others without a blink, but apparently can’t take. A parting thought, “always” is a long time.

Are you saying that the UVB rays that get through after an ozone depletion[ after a solar storm or/and proton event] have a miscule effect on the planet? All i am asking is could UvB rays do some heating when they get to the surface of the earth?