"The good news is, if this sucker blows, global warming is not going to be a problem. "

crosspatch-
the Sun has gotten ~300 degrees Kelvin hotter since it entered the Main Sequence about 4.57 Billion years ago — it will not get appreciably hotter , or more luminous until it starts burning helium – A little over 4GY in the future
The Sun will not be luminous enough to kill all plant life on Earth in 900 Million years — as KOC posited.
Subduction will not stop in 125 or even 250MY
The Earth’s Core will still be 7000 degrees in 250MY (maybe 200 degrees C lower than today, maybe not) — the upper mantle will be between 800 degrees F and 1600 degrees F – the lower still 2500-6000 Subduction will still be going on

The Earth’s Core and Mantle temperatures will still be plenty hot for the next 2 Billion Years — Core Temps >5000 F and Mantle Temps between 800 and 1600 F (the mantle only cools by 50-75 degrees K per GY.

I am well aware of that, Karl, which is one reason Earth has retained so much atmoshere to date. Venus is apparently has very active volcanism which keeps the atmosphere recharged with fresh gasses.
Gasses are constantly being stripped out of the atmosphere by the solar wind and by such things as disruptions by large flares that are directed at Earth. They are replaced by volcanism. Stop volcanism and you stop those gasses being replaced. And at the same time, if you constantly turn the heat up from the sun over time, as it does when it ages, you are eventually left with a rock.
We could probably get an atmosphere going again on mars by doing something like A: intentionally crash Phobos into the planet since it is in an unstable orbit and is going to crash into Mars anyway in another million or two years, just get that overwith now. B: Drill a very, very deep hole and intentionally drop enough fissionable material down that hole to cause a “melt down” (intentionally not enough moderator). Then stand back and wait a few million years. Heck, you might just want to go collecting up asteroids all through the belt and send them into Mars. Some serious bombardment would begin to heat the place back up again.

I think it’s worth noting that seismic recording has only been going on for a few decades here. We have no way of knowing if this is “normal”; it may have happened many times before. In all probability, given the speed with which scientists come out and spout crap about anything these days, I’d say it’s probably benign and that there’s nothing to worry about.

Pearland Aggie (04:46:24) :
I guess this is a new sunspot that will end the spotless streak…looks fairly legit.

Cycle 24 begins!
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm

REPLY: Um, that was last January. And I scooped NASA on it days before they had the story, see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/04/solar-cycle-24-has-officially-started/

I used to watch docos on the Discovery Channel, and some about Volcanoes, and they basically said Yellowstone could errupt at any given time and that’s been proven indefinetely compared to AGW. Good thing I’m in Australia xD
Eloise

I hope it holds off a bit. I need to get used to the sun shutting off first. If this does go then forget mild ‘Grand Minimum’ … we’re in for a Sporer and Maunder double whammy. It’s going to be 200 years before we get back to the 70’s let alone 80’s. That should do in wheat farming just south of the 60th parrallel 😉

Hi Fred,
Thanks for your comment.
Since there is probably some warm-up lag between air temp and ice melt, perhaps something definitive could be said if 5 years from now, we’re still in a cooling phase and the sea is still rising by anything above statistical noise.
re: anthropomorphic – I’m supposed to know that. LOL

@Julie L !
Ah! the rewards of reading all the comments.
I needed a chuckle, too. Hope you’re feeling better, soon.
Thanks for pointing out that great typo courtesy of Hotrod.
” . . I’ve been giggling all day over the volcanic ass injection. That’s the most memorable thing I’ve seen on this blog (heck, ANY blog) in years!
😀 :D”
Yep. Memorable.
(You DO think it was a typo – don’t you? I mean he wouldn’t have done that on purpose . . . . .:D

Don’t worry. I have it on good authority that it won’t blow until 2012! 😉

“Karl Heuer (14:49:03) :
crosspatch-
the Sun has gotten ~300 degrees Kelvin hotter since it entered the Main Sequence about 4.57 Billion years ago — it will not get appreciably hotter , or more luminous until it starts burning helium – A little over 4GY in the future”
That is absolutely not true. We can find lots of references. one of the more generous gives us a billion years most give 250 to 500 million. There’s a little more detail here

And, Kasting said, a cataclysmic finale may come even sooner. As Earth becomes a global desert, carbon dioxide levels are expected to drop. At a certain level, which he and his colleagues say might be achieved in half a billion years, there would not be enough carbon dioxide to support photosynthesis, and most plants would die.
Remaining plants would not be sufficient to support a biosphere, Kasting contends. So while the entire planet might incinerated in a few billion years, or cast off into a deep freeze, it’s possible that life on Earth is already in the sunset years.
“If we calculated correctly, Earth has been habitable for 4.5 billion years and only has a half-billion years left,” Kasting said

And I have heard this same scenario from more sources. The sun is getting brighter all the time though it may not be a constant, even increase. It might increase in steps. The sun will be about 40% brighter than it is now before it starts fusing helium. Earth will have been a dead rock for billions of years before that.