This is unusual. A live media teleconference on the sun. Even more unusual is this statement:
The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.
As you may recall, I posted an entry about the Ulysses mission back on June 16th and the findings of a lowered magnetic field in the sun, from the JPL press release then:
Ulysses ends its career after revealing that the magnetic field emanating from the sun’s poles is much weaker than previously observed. This could mean the upcoming solar maximum period will be less intense than in recent history.
We live in interesting times.
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
MEDIA ADVISORY : M08-176
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/sep/HQ_M08176_Ulysses_teleconference.html
NASA To Discuss Conditions On And Surrounding The Sun
WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low. The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.
Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of the sun. The reams of data Ulysses returned have changed forever the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 17 years – almost four times its expected mission lifetime.
The panelists are:
— Ed Smith, NASA Ulysses project scientist and magnetic field instrument investigator, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
— Dave McComas, Ulysses solar wind instrument principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
— Karine Issautier, Ulysses radio wave lead investigator, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, France
— Nancy Crooker, Research Professor, Boston University, Boston, Mass.
Reporters should call 866-617-1526 and use the pass code “sun” to participate in the teleconference. International media should call 1-210-795-0624.
To access visuals that will the accompany presentations, go to:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/ulysses-20080923.html
Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:
– end –
h/t to John Sumpton
Oops, forgot to close my blockquote. The last sentence was mine.
I suggest we all rug up it will get cold in the years to come.
Such a thing, however, is not a license for making stuff up…
Jeff Alberts (17:34:37) :
Oops, forgot to close my blockquote. The last sentence was mine: Such a thing, however, is not a license for making stuff up…
Who is making things up?
Leif Svalgaard (17:26:33) :
then an increased GCR flux might cool the Earth by cutting down on cloud formation
Before Mark accuses me [again] of double standards :-), I should fix my typo: then an increased GCR flux might cool the Earth by increasing cloud formation
“Crosspatch, the glacial/interglacial cycles are controlled by the earth’s orbital parameters. See this reference”
Really? What I find odd about that is how during a glaciation it gets progressively colder until temperature seems to “snap” back to very warm in a very short period of time, along the lines of less than a decade. I don’t think the orbit of Earth changes that drastically in that short of a period. It also seems to go into the ice age in a period of only a few years, like less than 5 years. Again, to perturb the orbit to such an extent that an ice age would start or end that suddenly seems a bit beyond the way I understand the earth’s orbit changes. I believe the change in orbit is more gradual than that. I admit that I haven’t read the reference yet.
[…] September 19, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized From WattsUpWithThat?: […]
Lief,
Oh, Crap – I thought I was someone special….
Mike
“looks like David Archibald was spot on after all….”
No, Landesciedt was. Years ago….
As far as sunspots in September, I believe there was a very tiny, very short lived cycle 23 sunspot (numbered 1001) a week or two ago.
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/
This site has the solar record going back to 2004 in a graphical form containing solar flux, Planetary -A index and daily sunpot. I can find a grpahic for solar wind, but only the current daily updated. I cannot find anywhere a record for the solar wind.
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/history/
This link has selected graphs going back to 1954.
Again, no link will take you to the historic of the Solar Wind.
So, if NASA is saying that the solar wind in the lowest in 50 years (since 1958) I cannot find the data on which they base this.
I assume they mean a weekly or monthly average.
If someone know WHERE you get the hist. data on solar wind, I’d like to know BEFORE they go a give this big report.
Not that I don’t trust them, I just like to see the proof in the pudding.
I stich those graphs together to see the solar flux in a funk greater than anything in the record back to 1954. The current trough goes back to 05/19/08 and looks like a low-lying lunar crater.
I’d like to paste it here for all to see, but that’s obviosly not possible.
Dr. Svalgaard’s comment that Stanford is “flat as a pancake” comes as quite a surprise! When I lived there as a young boy we used to fly kites on the beautiful Kite Hill, since turned into faculty housing. Cow Hill, atop which sits the “The Dish,” Stanford’s well-known radio telescope, was last used for sledding on snow in 1974. It is a mighty hill, with nearly 500 feet of vertical drop. I admit that only two or three hundred of that could be used on a single sledding run 🙂
If I happen to be visiting family during the next Bay Area snowstorm I will be sure to look for the good doctor and offer to lend him my sled 🙂
They are probably looking on this as a Godsend and will use it to cover their pathetic butts with the global cooling trend (albeit very small and short so far).
They will say something to the effect: “This natural solar event will TEMPORALLY allow the earth to cool down, but in a few years global warming will return with a vengeance.”
Just a guess.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
[…] September 23 NASA will hold a press conference on the spotless sun, and the possibility of “changing conditions in the solar system.” It’s a safe bet […]
I came across this info about perihelion and aphelion at
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php
I wasn’t aware that the dates changed back and forth slightly each year. In light of this, wouldn’t it make more sense when comparing dates between years to use “x number of days before (or after) aphelion (or perihelion)” rather than a matching calendar day of the month? One would compare the solar flux or amount of arctic sea ice each year, let’s say, aphelion plus 40 days rather than a calendar date which really isn’t exactly the same date.
I also noticed that 2005 and 2007 had a few more days between perihelion and aphelion than did 2006 and 2008. I wonder if those kind of differences would have any effect on sea ice melting. I will leave it to the more technically adept to compare the data and report it here if it is of interest.
I ALWAYS said the quiet Sun was the most fascinating thing to watch. Apparently so.
I am afraid you are absolutely correct with respect to that once great periodical, Scientific American..
It has beem taken over by the psuedo-scientific leftwing journalistic quacks masquerading as scientists including the Farce Emminence from Columbia who serves as their conection to “real science”.
I look forward to its its rescue from the idiots, just a soon as the media intself as we know it finally purges the idiots in a reaction toot plunging circulation and ad revenues.
The quacks do no teven acknowledge their stupidity. They publsihed an artical that projected paving the states s of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico with solar cells and never even raised an issue of local climactic Environmental Impact. Solar is “good” somehow, so nothing bad could posssibly arise from barbequing evey living thing in three states.
During the winter of 1998-1999, I remember 12″ deep snow at the top of Page Mill Road, 10 miles due west of Stanford.
I don’t know, Leif, you throw clouds and cosmic rays in the mix and any number of mechanisms may pop out. Precisely how many, I don’t know, but I’d guess at least one.
===============================================
Old Man Winter (19:11:41) :
Dr. Svalgaard’s comment that Stanford is “flat as a pancake” comes as quite a surprise!
You did say ‘campus’. I worked there 1972-1978 and 2008.
Robert Bateman (18:57:55) :
Again, no link will take you to the historic of the Solar Wind.
Try playing with http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/
The http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/spotless-days-400-and-counting/ post commented on upcoming milestones of number of spotless days. It said, “total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest.” We are nearing the next one. Depending on how many sunspots we get in the next while, the next milestones are near:
446: Sept 29, 2008
534: Dec 26, 2008
568: Jan 29, 2009
If we only get a few sunspots here and there, then these dates will only be pushed back a week or two. I wonder if the longer this period is, the weaker solar cycle 24 will be.
John M Reynolds
“Not that I don’t trust them, I just like to see the proof in the pudding.”
Don’t bother looking Robert. There is no proof in the pudding. That is because the proof of the pudding is in the eating. 🙂
John M Reynolds
Dr. S,
As always I enjoy your sense of humor and your semi infinite patience.