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.
The Carbon Tax Minimum….oh wait, that might be The Carbon Tax Maximum! LOL
Seriously,
I like the Svensmark Minimum or the Archibald Minimum.
I like the Eddy or Archibald Minimum. Eddy earned it and Archibald is providing specifics (based on others work) http://www.davidarchibald.info/papers/Archibald2009E&E.pdf
If its named after Gore, he’ll just make a speech taking credit for it. Although the Inconvenient Minimum may be best of all.
I also like the Climate Common Sense Minimum.
I would like to suggest the Veritas Minimum for exposting the truth about global warming and the truth about who or what controls the weather.
What was I thinking?
It’s The Minimum Melting Minimum.
Gore Minimum seems redundant.
Inconvenient Minimum works.
What about something like the “In Spite of Consensus Minimum”?
Watt about the Watts Minimum.
I suggested the Svalgard Minimum before so I had to stick with that but I think Leif didn’t like it.
It should be named after whoever predicted it the most accurately having the best proven-in-the-long-run method/model. In that case, it will be few decades before it can receive the proper name.
Please not Gore, or Hansen. Those frauds have already received far too much publicity. Let us not make their name remembered any more than they would be anyway.
Inconvenient Minimum has to be the one.
I remember being one of the first to propose Hansen Minimum (because it had two syllables and I despise him), but in the interest of history and seriousness I too have already decided to call it the Landscheidt Minimum. It’s only right.
Earth Day Minimum
FYI
it has a name
“Landscheidt Minimum”
just google ( Landscheidt Minimum )
http://www.google.com/search?q=Landscheidt+Minimum%E2%80%99&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
results 3100 hits
I have been pushing for some time for The Gore Minimum without gaining any traction (see poll results).
My logic is quite simple: The Nobel Committee is unlikely to take back Albert’s Prize, regardless of the subsequently discovered “truths”.
For the benefit of future generations, we need to slap a big “asterisk” on that Nobel Prize in the form of “The Gore Minimum” (particularly if we get “climate” similar to that experienced during the Maunder and Dalton Minima).
The HUBRIS of the AGW folks, and especially their College of Cardinals, Gore & Hansen. has been positively Biblical in scale and reach. Future generations need to hear about it.
I withdraw Algore (as in Igor) and vote for Roger Knight’s”Inconvenient Minimum”.
It appropriately skewers Al without immortalizing his name.
For fun: Gore Minimum
For real: Landscheidt Minimum
I would definitely not support using either Gore or Hansen in the name. It would be a travesty to immortalize them for something they actively ignored.
By the same token at this point it is not a “minimum” although it may become one.
I would suggest we refer to it as the Y2K quiet period until it develops more fully or fades away. That gives a convenient handle for it and it can be associated with someone like Eddy, Landscheidt, or Salvgaard who ever has the best basis for being recognized as its predictor, if and when it shows it will be reasonable to call it a minimum.
I think there is some question at this time if Landscheidt’s predictions had any “scientific basis”, so even if he was correct, it would be more appropriate for the minimum if it develops to be named after someone who demonstrates what the mechanics of the minimum might be.
There is always the case for a combined name like the “Landscheidt, Salvgaard Minimum” and the “Eddy quiet period” or something similar.
I just think it is a bit premature to call it a minimum although the sharp down turn to a quiet sun should be given a name at least for discussion and reference.
Larry
For fun, how about Mann Bear PIg minimum?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bear_pig
But seriously, I think Landscheidt Svaalgard Minimum would be appropriate
Well my vote is to wait until at least the September solstice and see what happens to the ice.
I’m definitely against calling it anything that even hints of anybody in the MMGWCC cult movement; or that very movement itself.
George
Watt’s mininum.
Well, only because nobody else has said it: The AGW (as in Al Gore was Wrong) minimum.
What about: Algorisphulovscheit Minimum
I say we continue to hang onto our riggin’, don’t get the cart out ahead of the horse, and watch to see just how events with the sun ultimately play out. It doesn’t look like namin’ time yet.
The longer the sun remains in the doldrums, the more portentious & important the consequences. If the sun suddenly begins behaving ‘normally’, ‘as expected’, in the near future, then the quiet pattern we’ve seen so far is relatively minor. But otoh, it could go on like it is now for, well … who knows how long? We don’t know, do we?
Let the story unfold. If it turns out to be a BIG story, then others will abscond with the naming-privelege.
So far, the status of the sun remains an increasingly tantalizing … mystery. It’s tough to let a mystery remain a mystery, but it’s the right – and the smart! – thing to do.
Most who enjoy WUWT think that if the sun continues its present low ebb ‘indefinitely’, the consequences will be quite severe.
But like most things nowaday will will give it a number, like the SC24 Minimum or whatever…
lets face it, no one can spell svalgard. Gore Minimum, the man deserves infamy.
Congrats to Lief he is winning the silent majority vote and mine.