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.
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Leif Svalgaard (15:14:38) :
… but I personally think that we should reserve ‘Grand Minimum’ for the ones that are REALLY deep like the Maunder. …. Since these minima have come about every 100 years for a while now, it is no big feat to ‘predict’ one [my little grandson Peter did that several years ago just by looking at http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html ].
—–
OK, so, can we use “The Grandsum’s Mini-Minimum” ? 8<)
Please?
Anthony, you are being too modest here! WUWT has done more to promote awareness of this minimum than anyone. You deserve the honour. I propose “Watts Minimum”. This name has the additional benefit of reminding the general public that the suns’s output has reached a minimum wattage….
I’m not sure having a minimum named after you is an honor, with the potential climate side effects. And we don’t know if we really have a minimum. Leif deserves recognition for his expertise and contributions. Al Gore, who might understand 0.0001% of the problem deserves something else.
In Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the repeated moaning of the letter Mu is the sound made by the sleeping Furies, or Erinyes which literally means ‘the angry ones’.
Since the angry sun is now sleeping it is obviously moaning Mu when you listen to the radio waves converted to sound waves. I am certain that Leif will back me up on that. With that I nominate:
Mu Minimum… another palindrome of course.
If I were a AGW believer I would name it the “Masking Minimum”. But I’m not so I’ll go with the “Inconvenient Minimum”. Let’s hope no one will ever have to re-name it the “Final Minimum”.
How about :
‘The moving minimum’ (also with a footnote) or the
‘drowing polar bear minimum’ (which would also require a footnote)
or the Svalgaard-Watts minimum
My choice is for Leif.
A man can know he’s right, despite what all around him may say. He may know he’s right and feel a certain satisfaction in knowing he knew. Dr. Svalgaard put himself out there with his view that a change was coming, yet he’s not gone to extremes of fantasy; he’s adhered to solid science. It’s only fitting that he be so recognized for his work in this fashion.
Let it be the Svalgaard Minimum.
I immediately thought of the Gore Minimum. Then I recalled that Apple tried to give the code name Sagan to an internal project. Carl Sagan had a hissy fit and threatened to sue.. They renamed the project Butthead Astronomer. We could just skip the middle step and call it Tje Butthead Politician Minimum.
They probably will call it the Deniers Minimum. But with all that CO2 in the air, this should protect us from getting too cold, right?. Of course, if it does get cold despite CO2’s thin blanket near the surface, it’s just a matter of time before they tell us CO2 enhances Global Cooling brought about from the suns inactivity by releasing heat from the upper troposphere to space, and risks plunging the world into an ice age which would have even more dire consequences than Global Warming. It’s truly an Orwellian world we live in.
What about the Catlin Minimum?… because they are experiencing first hand its effect and how it will be if it stays like that.
The more I think about it, the better I like it:
The Svalgaard-Landscheidt Anomalous Minimum
It even comes with a nifty acronym:
SLAM
Since know one knows yet the scale of this minimum, how about,
The Enigma Minimum
or
The Conundrum Minimum
The It’s In The Pipeline Minimum
1 spot yesterday, already faded away.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
Does anyone know if it was a cycle 23 or cycle 24 spot?
Definitely The Gore Minimum.
My vote is for the Eddy Minimum. The huckster AL Gore does not deserve to have his name on toilet paper. The credit should go to a scientist (not a politician) who originally discovered the object. In this case Eddy. My second choice would be Landscheit Minimum.
The McIntyre “ITOLDyaso” minimum
Re: many
Don’t like the Gore Minimum at all – Svalgaard, Watts, Landscheidt et al are all better.
Don’t confuse Al Gore with “the Gore Effect” – that’s something different. It’s speculation-proof protection provided by the real world.
At first I thought Gore Minimum was a cinch. Then I realized that considering the speed with which history always gets rewritten (and not in a good way), it would soon turn into yet another honor for him. Not!
So I humbly propose it be called… The Igno Minimum.
It’s been studiously ignored as the whole planet has caught a chill. It will aslo have much of the scientific/political world deserving of shame and disgrace in thier ignominy.
Mike
Why is everyone predicting such a dramatic minimum? Maybe it is going to be just like Leif predicts it will be … a regular cycle, just smaller than the ones we have seen in recent history but nothing unprecedented.
REPLY: This is mostly just for fun. See the tag “fun stuff”. – Anthony
Tough call there. I wanted to call “Gore” out of irony but Leif does something useful, and actually predicted a down-turn in solar activity.
Now, Leif studies the Sun; there appear to be very few who study the interaction of Sun and Earth and Moon. Probably a whole fresh new arena for PhD dissertations 🙂
Bare Minimum
or
Carbon Minimum
or
Landscheidt Minimum
Danish Minimum. Honoring Svensmark, Svalgaard, and Lomborg.
Lomborg goes along with the “science” of AGW but has done
more than anyone else to break down the political side of AGW.
Gore minimum.
I think tying Gore to the sun behavior is the kiss of death to the AGW crappie.
Ken Hall @ur momisugly 11:56:47
A fine piece of rhetoric. Not hard science, but political science; you put it in the nutshell!