Although we’ve been covering this quiet sun issue for over a year on WUWT, the light bulb seems to have gone on for mainstream media right about now.
There is growing press coverage about the current state of the sun, most recently from Charles Osgood of CBS News as well as the BBC and other major outlets. While the sun slumbers deeper and has missed its cyclic snooze alarm, our media is finally waking up to the solar somnolence.
Here is a short roundup of news articles on this subject today:
‘Still Sun’ baffling astronomers
Scientists warn sun has dimmed
Sun ‘at its quietest for 100 years’
Has the sun gone in? Earth’s closest star ‘dimmest it’s been for a century’
So the question arises, now that this has been identified, what should we call it?
There have been some good ideas, such as naming it after Jack Eddy, who coined the phrase “Maunder Minimum“. There’s been some discussion of a “Gore Minimum”, but I don’t like the idea of giving Gore credit for something he has nothing to do with, or even likely understands. There’s been suggestion of “The Hansen Minimum” which makes a little more sense, since he’s an astronomer by training. On that note, Leif Svalgaard predicted this, so maybe it should be his honor.
So, I’ve decided to have a poll, and I’ll take suggestions for other names than what I’ve listed.
Landscheidt Minimum seems good to me since his predictions seem spot on although i don’t know if he was the first to predict but i think he deserves it.
After all the creative proposals to find a name for the current Minimum
Have I missed the “Wattsupwiththat Minimum”?
It perfectly illustrates the “question mark” that symbolizes the big question what consequences this Minimum will have for the human civilization and the scientific processes that take place.
How cold is it going to be, how long will it last, what mechanisms causes the cooling,
will we see an increase in volcanic activity, will we be able to feed the world, etc. etc?
All questions that “hunger” for an answer.
Passed Minimums have caused cultural and political earthquakes, hunger, epidemics and agricultural disasters but when we came out of the cold the planet counted almost one billion inhabitants.
Many people survived because they could escape the extremes and migrate to other places.
Today, this will proof to be a limited option.
The further South we go the higher the population densities get.
Individual countries could close their borders.
Anyhow, the “Watsupwiththat Minimum” will proof to be an interesting time.
Climactus Interruptus!
/Mr Lynn
Mini Mum
Small and quiet. As opposed to a Dalton type minimum. Which would be called Maxi Mum.
Easy to remember too.
I went with Svalgaard Minimum, but I do agree that Inconvenient Minimum has scope and texture.
Thank Anthony and these commenters for providing such a useful site! I come at it from the history side and never believed the AGW hype, and have learned so much about the science from this site.
Dim Sun! Chinese contribution to saving the Earth by polluting the air is recognized.
ralf ellis (07:57:29) :
Thanks for the fantastic link ralf:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
I would recommend it to anyone interested in Planetary Theory. It covers a vast area in reasonably simple layman’s terms and even includes Svalgaard’s work.
Points of interest include how the DE JAGER and VERSTEEGH (2005) attempt to debunk planetary theory has been debunked itself. The De Jager paper has been held up many times in this forum….perhaps it can now be buried.
The linked paper (a study produced by Mackey 2007) suggests SC24 to be very similar to SC14, with SC25 & SC26 being the real low cycles. This will be very interesting to watch, history shows us grand minima can occur on the disturbed cycle or just after, its a matter of timing. I think it may happen on the cycle this time around.
I’m all for the “give it up, Climahysterics” minimum
OK. I have one you guys haven’t thought of yet.
Snow White Minimum.
I can’t think of who the seven dwarfs are but they could be all the continents?
Just a thought or two. What do you guys think?
Goricus Stupisius Minimus sounds latin!
Kings New Clothes Minimum is fine too.
7 or 8 years back a Russian scientist reported this and predicted this minimum, name it after him.
I voted “Gore Minimum” after reading an excerpt in the BBC article that said: “This has resulted in some people suggesting that a similar cooling might offset the impact of climate change.” Only a politician can spin the definition of a word like “change” to mean “warming”. I guess that means “stasis” is “cooling”.
But then I thought we should call it the “Dr. Evil Minimum”. I can hear Austin Power’s nemesis say as he lifts pinky to mouth: “I shall call it, ‘Mini-mum’.”
I still think “Gorebull Maximum” outlines the whole story of getting things bassakward.
Geoff Sharp (17:16:11) :
Points of interest include how the DE JAGER and VERSTEEGH (2005) attempt to debunk planetary theory has been debunked itself.
The ‘debunking itself’ is invalid. Here is what the paper said:
“de Jager and Versteegh (2005) reported that the accelerations of the Sun caused by the planets seem to completely disappear in the accelerations observed inside the Sun and therefore cannot influence the solar dynamo significantly.”
This is still the case and has not been debunked [not even with the above statement].
And: “However, de Jager and Versteegh (2005) may have been looking for the wrong phenomena. de Jager and Versteegh (2005) appear to have misunderstood solar inertial motion since Shirley (2006) shows their inappropriate use of rotational equations for modelling particle motions due to orbital revolution.”
This shows that Mackey has the shoe on the wrong foot. What Shirley (2006) showed was that there can be no spin-orbit coupling via angular momentum. It is, indeed, silly to even look at the influence of orbital momentum in view of what Shirley (2006) points out, but deJager and Versteegh (2005) play Devil’s advocates and calculates that even if there were such a coupling it is woefully inadequate, recognizing that many people would not be able to grasp Shirley’s paper [if they did, there would be no need to debunk anything, because it would be obvious]. From Shirley’s abstract: “The Sun’s orbital motion is a state of free fall; in consequence, aside from very small tidal motions, the associated particle velocities do not vary as a function of position on or within the body of the Sun”
It is sad that the general level of scientific literacy has fallen this low combined with a seeming disregard for honest brokering of information.
Ron de Haan (15:59:47) wrote:
“After all the creative proposals to find a name for the current Minimum, Have I missed the “Wattsupwiththat Minimum”?
“It perfectly illustrates the “question mark” that symbolizes the big question what consequences this Minimum will have for the human civilization and the scientific processes that take place.”
I suggested “The Watts Up Minimum,” with the same intended connotation.
Well, no one has said it yet and I know that alot of you have been thinking it but just were not brave enough to say it:
The MONKEY Minimum
Do I really have to justify it?
Jesters minimum.
The Zombie Minimum, It’s dead but the light’s still on…
The Limbo Minimum, it’s out of commission for awhile, but it’ll be back…. we hope.
The Mythbuster Minimum
OK… I hope this is # 500:
The Ministry of Truth Minimum
Mike Bryant (19:15:29) :
Utterly unnecessary Mike. And out of place.
Shirley 2006:
“The inappropriate use of rotational equations for modelling particle motions due to orbital revolution is an ongoing problem (yet another example is found in Section 2 of De Jager & Versteegh 2005).”
–
“In order to isolate the motions of revolution, we will initially suppose that our subject body is not rotating.”
–
While the word “initially” may seem to suggest Shirley will later address differential rotation, he does not do so.
Judging by the misunderstandings & ongoing disputes in the solar physics literature with regard to differential rotation and related frames, it is absolutely evident that solar physicists do not yet have their heads wrapped around the complexity in consensus-form; as Leif Svalgaard admits, this is still an active area of research.
Mike Bryant (20:11:22) :
“The Mythbuster Minimum”
This one I like very much.
Folks need to start breaking out their copies of Niven and Pournelle’s “Fallen Angels”, about some astronauts stranded on an Earth living through an Ice Age and ruled by Greens and their Global Warming religion, who blamed the astronauts for the cooling via their “stealing atmosphere” for their space station. Niven and Pournelle predicted the future…
It is possible that it will be a very short minimum and will come to be called,
The Minute Minimum…