Now here would be a great time to get some geo-engineering project proposals to break up blocking highs over Greenland. The cost of a hard winter in North America and Europe has got to be billions and billions. For greenies just think how much extra fossil fuel is being used to keep a billion people in heated dwellings.
Of course Greenlanders might have some objections. Their heating bills are substantially reduced and who knows – if it keeps up they can keep cattle like the Vikings once did. Maybe even grow apples too.
In the meantime people who aren’t old enough to remember what the winters were like 40 or more years ago are getting their first taste. Hey look, Mikey doesn’t like it!

i guess more cosmic rays must be getting in!

Al Gore explained it to me best. He said that man’s use of fossil fuels is causing the sun’s spin to go out of whack, which makes… I can’t remember it all, but the important thing is that we need to stop using oil. He sounded pretty confident about it.

Is anyone besides me worrying about the real consequences of a severe, long term minimum?

Not yet. CO2 is still increasing, so we should be ok :p.

You know this Solar Cycle reminds me of that Monty Python Dead Parrot Routine.
So is old Sol pining for the fjords?

DoctorJJ says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:10 am
“Is anyone besides me worrying about the real consequences of a severe, long term minimum? I want to cheer as the aun goes quiet and the globe cools, but a good part of me is quite apprehensive as to what this could mean to mankind.”
The effect I think would be best described as sobering. Humbling might fit well too.
This is mother nature giving us a bitch slap. At least it isn’t a supervolcano, large asteroid strike, or record setting coronal mass ejection. There’s far worse that can happen. At least we can probably predict an asteroid strike and do something to prevent it. And we could prepare for a big CME. Supervolcano – we’re probably screwed, glued, and tatooed there.
The very least of my worries is global warming. World War III ranks above global warming. Hell I’m cheering for global warming! Call me weird but I prefer plants and animals to barren ice and rock.

Leif, any insights? Is this just a temporary flagging? I would have to guess it is, but it is nonetheless worrisome.
It reminds me a bit of an old car I used to have that would have a problem starting up in cold weather. There was always that worrisome moment of “will she?”/”won’t she” as I listened to the motor turn over, trying to catch. I feel much the same here with Old Sol. I hope she starts up again.

REPLY: “And the Sun’s corona is millions of degrees hotter than the photosphere. These simple observations point to the energy source of the Sun being external. ”
Really? What rubbish. – Anthony
Perhaps it would be better to say that they point to the distinct possibility that the current model of the sun’s function is incorrect.

@anthony
Do you think we’re in for an increase in La Ninas due to the solar slumber?
They cause droughts here in Texas. Bad ones. This one is no exception. California gets the floods instead. I’d rather have floods than droughts.

I tell ya, I’m really starting to believe there is such a thing as universal karma.

The really frightening thought is this:
If this low internal solar activity really is a valid correlate with a cooling Sun delivering less energy to the Earth, and if it lasts for some time, and if we really are facing a rapid global cold snap analogous to a Maunder or Dalton minimum, there is no course of action that would be LESS well suited to that than the current model of investing heavily in windmills for electric power. To say nothing of relying on agricultural crops for vehicle fuels!

[quote]Dave Springer says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:52 am
I don’t suppose this will do anything to stop the flood of legal immigrants from New York to Texas. A little 2010 census humor there.[/quote]
Not as long as we don’t have an income tax.

I am reminded that it takes a lot of things to go right for this planet to maintain a warm and consistent atmosphere. On the other hand, it would be easy for the Earth to revert to a snowball.

@John Day
> Think of geomagnetic storms as magnetic “quakes”, analogous to earthquakes,
> except the magnetic field is trembling, not the ground.
… forgot to mention, using this earthquake analogy, that Ap/Kp indices are then analogous to the open-ended Richter Index for measuring the intensity of earthquakes. Kp, being logarithmic, is closest to this Richter analogy. Ap can be thought of roughly as the anti-log of Kp.
Ap, being linear, can be averaged with other readings. Kp, being logarithmic, cannot be averaged. They both are a “Richter-like” measure of the “magnetic quakes” in the Earth’s magnetic field.
So an Ap value of zero doesn’t necessarily imply a low magnetic field value, only that there are no _measurable_ perturbations.

“Gerry says:
December 23, 2010 at 11:17 am
How many denials are we going to hear from the AGW crowd when the price of firewood and heating oil skyrockets during the next mini-Ice Age??? Oh, that’s right… it’s all just ‘climate change’ and ‘local weather’.”
Did you know that the theft of heating oil in the UK is one of the fastest rising crimes. The lowlife always seem to know the best way to get money and what people will be willing to pay for.

Re: “It’s 2-3 million Kelvin but that’s pretty meaningless because the corona is a near perfect vacuum. The photosphere is what we see and that’s 5000K. The core, which is where the energy is generated by gravitational compression of hydrogen to fusion temperature and pressure, is 14.5 million K and is by far the hottest densest portion of the sun.
The corona, because it’s so vacuous, throws off almost no radiation and neither does it absorb a significant amount . That’s why it isn’t visible except during a full eclipse.”
By the way, none of the responses thus far have begun to grapple with the various enigmas which Wal Thornhill brings up. Anthony’s objection to Wal’s inference fails to address the numerous problems with the currently favored explanation, magnetic reconnection.

Magnetic reconnection is the process whereby magnetic field lines from different magnetic domains are spliced to one another, changing their patterns of connectivity with respect to the sources. It is a violation of an approximate conservation law in plasma physics, and can concentrate mechanical or magnetic energy in both space and time. Solar flares, the largest explosions in the solar system, may involve the reconnection of large systems of magnetic flux on the Sun, releasing, in minutes, energy that has been stored in the magnetic field over a period of hours to days. Magnetic reconnection in Earth’s magnetosphere is one of the mechanisms responsible for the aurora, and it is important to the science of controlled nuclear fusion because it is one mechanism preventing magnetic confinement of the fusion fuel.
…
Magnetic reconnection is something that has supposedly been “tested” and proven in the lab yet for some reason the lab results keep coming out “wrong.”
Currently when scientists create a “reconnection” event in the lab between two electrically charged plasma sheets the “reconnection” event takes place at twice the speed MHD theory predicts.
So far no one has been able to rectify this problem, nor have they been able to produce a “reconnecting” magnetic field without first applying current to the plasma sheets they are observing. The reason being obvious of course, in order to create a magnetic field, one must first induce an electrical current. So far, this is the only known way of producing a magnetic field in a plasma that can be tested.
As soon as the current shuts off, so too does the magnetic field.

The Sun does appear to be quiet but it is still far more active than it was during the minimum. NASA’s latest SOHO images can be found here: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html has some great images.
I’m waiting for the day when world wide 10m propagation on a modest antenna becomes a reality. I understand that will be around SSN 50 and above.

I’m wondering what the possible implications are for the solar industry and all the project metric$ going forward in North America and in the West…thinking there is a good chance the ~.5% annual degradation rates for PV assumed in most solar business models may not quite be enough…
And are we looking at a Dalton or a Maunder? Thoughts?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SOLAR_MINIMUM.pdf
Favorite points from this article…aside from the WUWT honorable mention therein?
“There remains the question of whether the Maunder Minimum will arrive in time to avoid a global carbon tax?” (where reality meets scientific wit)
“a better understanding of the Sun might now have practical value.” (intentional understatement of the century)
Are we there yet?

Take your pick: Do you want an electric current powering the Sun? Or, would you prefer magnetic reconnection experiments, which apparently fail to work without an electric current?
I’m sure that *somebody* *somewhere* can come up with an inference which explains the inverse-corona temperature enigma and which does not involve an electric current. But upon what philosophical basis are we even trying so hard to do so? Isn’t this the same antiquated approach which led Sydney Chapman to ignore the role of the Sun when trying to explain the aurora?

I see that there are competing ideas as to how the Sun works. The only viable one that I have seen so far is fusion. It not only explains our star, but also stellar evolution such as red giants, novas and other related phenomena. We have still not figured out the finer details of stellar behaviour, but no doubt that will come in time.
Any competing theory has to be good enough to explain all aspects of stellar evolution, as well as variations that exist in our universe.

Well, the Solar Minimum began in 2008. That not prevented 2010 being so far the hottest year on record.
The Earth has been warming since the 1970s, while at the same time solar activity was in the decline, after peaking in the 1950s.
A new Dalton Minimum will not cause significant global cooling, the impact of the enhanced Greenhouse effect is overwelmingly bigger. The data show that clearly.

Hmmmmmm…. curiouser and curiouser. Thanks for the regular posts on old Sol Anthony, Joe, Jan, and Lief! Sincerely – Thank You and Merry Christmas to all of the good folks that make WattsUpWithThat such an enjoyable and unique success!
Richard says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:43 am
Q: “Whose afraid of the big bad snow and ice?”
A: Anyone who has lived and worked outdoors through severe northern winters, that’s who!!!
When the frost in the ground goes deeper than the water supply lines to your house and livestock barns (+4 feet!), life becomes very hard and fear is your neighbor. When you must work bare handed to fix an essential something and you risk frostbite, fear looks over your shoulder. When you must have electric heaters for your car battery and engine block to get it to start on a -30F night, fear of a power failure or finding an available electrical socket is a reality. When the power grid goes down and the electric circulating pumps or blowers on your furnace won’t run, I’m afraid you better have a back up plan!
When the snow piled high on your barn, garage, and house roofs approaches their structural load limits, you had damn well better be afraid… and get your ‘afraid of heights’ butt up there and clear it off! When you must use your farm tractor to punch a path through the drifting to the point of impassable roads and provide escort so an ambulance team can care for a neighbor heart attack victim, fear for their survival is at the fore. For anyone stranded in ‘white out’ blizzard conditions, life approaches the terminal point and fear stares you in the face.
I grew up in these conditions and these are my experiences. I have survived in brutal winter conditions that can kill less prepared and less fearful individuals. From unforgiving experiences, I know there is far more to fear from “big bad snow and ice”, be it ‘weather’ or ‘climate change’ induced, than there will ever be from 3C of ‘global warming’.
In my experience, it is usually those scoffing and ‘unafraid’ folks like Richard that get stranded in the worst conditions. They either die or get rescued by others who put themselves at risk to save their sorry butts.

ARSE or Anthropogenic Remedial Solar Effect.
As all the ice caps have now gone and melted the cold has escaped into space, cooling the Sun. In order to maintain thermal equilibrium the CO2 molecules multiply ( proton genesis ) and so the Earth heats up, causing it to snow everywhere. The snow melts and the vicious cycle continues.
You can purchase your compulsory Solar Credits at taxnfleece.com

phlogiston, thanks for the great sarcastic reply to Reeves and Thornhill so I don’t have to, (unless it keeps on coming, that is!)

wayne says:
December 23, 2010 at 2:29 pm
One does what one can for king and country.
Dave Springer says:
December 23, 2010 at 11:18 am
@anthony
Do you think we’re in for an increase in La Ninas due to the solar slumber?
They cause droughts here in Texas. Bad ones. This one is no exception. California gets the floods instead. I’d rather have floods than droughts.
According to Bob Tisdale’s excellent recent ENSO analysis here, there are periodic flips between el Nino dominated and La Nina dominated periods, about 30-35 years long each, going back more than a century and without any obvious help from solar activity. While Bob meticulously avoids getting drawn into predictions, the clear implication is that we are just starting a new La Nina dominant phase. Perhaps a quiet sun will add something to this.

Rhyl Dearden says:
December 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm
“I worry about the effects of cold because it impedes the growth of crops, and starvation can happen if growing period is too short. Warming extends range of crop land, cooling contracts it and while there was starvation during the LIA think what it will be like this time – how much food reserves are there in the world? Already large numbers of people are on inadequate diets.”
Quite right.
I think we can withstand any number of harsh winters – as long as each one is followed by an adequate growing season.
A single, global “year without a summer” – such as happened in 1816 – would be catastrophic almost beyond imagination.

This can all be explained by the recently discovered “Gore Effect”

And the predictions are for a Dalton minimum? hmmm.
I wonder what triggers a glaciation ice age?
So the AGW lies broke the sun 🙂

1) The Earth has seen “extreme” temperature swings.
2) The Earth has only one “energy” source. (besides its core).
To deny the Sun as the driver, even though we orbit in its “gravity hole”, seems to defy logic.
Ya gotta love it !!!

@Zeke

I see. A mental temperature gradient graph is easy for anyone to picture. And is it normal for such incredibly steep temperature troughs to exist as a body radiates heat? Can you give any examples in nature of an incredibly cool surface sandwiched between such enormous temperatures? What is keeping the heat from filling in that trough?
Your comment is very dismissive of this tenuous 3 million degree corona; I think you would miss it a little here on earth if it were gone.

Zeke, you’re missing the point. “Temperature is not energy”. In this case it’s the “kinetic temperature” of the fast-moving molecules in the corona:

1/2mv² = 3/2kT

where v is the average speed. Yes, theoretically, even a single molecule could have a million-degree temperature if it moved fast enough. But temperature only makes sense in a useful way in very large distributions of mass.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/kintem.html
The total mass of the corona is vanishingly small: 3×10¹⁴kg. In comparison, only 1/10 of the mass of Mount Everest: 3×10¹⁵kg! And only 1/10000th the mass of Earth’s atmosphere: 5×10¹⁸kg
So the total energy here: 1/2mv², is negligible on a solar scale. Therefore, we are entitled to dismiss its radiative effects on the solar system.

Zeke the Sneak says:
December 23, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I see. A mental temperature gradient graph is easy for anyone to picture. And is it normal for such incredibly steep temperature troughs to exist as a body radiates heat? Can you give any examples in nature of an incredibly cool surface sandwiched between such enormous temperatures? What is keeping the heat from filling in that trough?
Your comment is very dismissive of this tenuous 3 million degree corona; I think you would miss it a little here on earth if it were gone.

—
Most radiation of solar origin affecting earth emanates from the photosphere, and not the corona. If there corona were gone, the change in the radiative energy flux incident on earth would be changed by only a small, fractional amount.
Some confusion arises because, even though the corona is warmer than the photosphere, the corona is also very much less dense. If the gas in each layer were the same density, heat would easily conduct from the hotter region to the cooler one (as most people would expect, i.e. heat would flow down the temperature gradient). But the photosphere and corona are not the same density – in fact the photosphere is something like 10^12 times more dense than the corona – and this makes it difficult for the tenuous corona to affect the temperature of the photosphere in any meaningful way.

from mars says:
December 23, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Well, the Solar Minimum began in 2008. That not prevented 2010 being so far the hottest year on record.
The Earth has been warming since the 1970s, while at the same time solar activity was in the decline, after peaking in the 1950s.
A new Dalton Minimum will not cause significant global cooling, the impact of the enhanced Greenhouse effect is overwelmingly bigger. The data show that clearly.
***************************************
I hope you had your tin foil hat on while typing this drivel. Since you believe everything someone feeds you, I happen to have a bridge that I’m selling in Brooklyn.

“And the Sun’s corona is millions of degrees hotter than the photosphere. These simple observations point to the energy source of the Sun being external. ”
Really? What rubbish. – Anthony
Well, why don’t you be the one person to explain it then, because no one else has.

@jay curtis

The sun has been as smooth as a baby’s butt for more than a few days now. What are the odds it will climb back out of the current funk? Maunder Minimum on the way?The sun has been as smooth as a baby’s butt for more than a few days now.
What are the odds it will climb back out of the current funk? Maunder Minimum on the way?

I think it’s already started. The 2800Mhz microwave flux is back up to 80 (from 78 yesterday) and the Xray flux is increasing slightly. A few new tiny specks now visible in the NE quadrant.
On the far side we can still see (via the STEREO peekaround satellites) the old sunspot #1131, the largest in solar cycle #24, is still magnetically active. Should be rotating back into Earth view in about a week (if it can keep itself organized).
You can check all this out for yourself here: http://www.solarcycle24.com/
So, old Sol will certainly bounce back. But it’s going to be a very small cycle, max smoothed sunspot number around 70 or so.
In any case, it will be the “Eddy Minimum”, not Maunder, if we do enter another Grand Solar Minimum.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/online-petition-the-next-solar-minimum-should-be-called-the-eddy-minimum/

Chris Reeve says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:49 am
I have a question for the electric sun people… I constantly see them purporting that, like on Earth, fusion is an effective energy sink, i.e. it takes more energy to get fusion going than you get out of it… therefore requiring a huge amount of electrical energy being transported to the sun through some mysterious means I can’t quite figure out, given that over 14 billion years, any widely distributed energy in the vacuum would have been all gobbled up… I digress.
How can you possibly assume that’s a valid concept though, given that the human energy input is needed specifically to provide the things that a stellar core provides… high temperature and pressure, conducive to producing fusion. It was my understanding that once the reaction was triggered, it was sustainable ONLY through maintaining high temp and pressure.
Is that fundamentally wrong? Does it require more electricity or energy, sans triggering containment and thermoregulation, to MAINTAIN a fusion reaction than it produces?
Because otherwise, I can easily imagine that there’s an intrastellar/intrasolar electrical component, but the concept of pulling in essential unimaginable amounts of electricity from the ether for all of the stars in the galaxy… where exactly did you say all that electricity comes from (laws of thermodynamics and all that)? And why hasn’t the Universe already reached a final entropic stage?

Shoot the shoulds!
TX. Great info! Always love learning about the sun. Quiet indeed, and interesting to see how climate will be affected – may finally help quantifying cosmo-climatological forcings.
BUT… making a posting about the oh-so-low activity at what just as well could be the bottom in an usually up and down swinging graph, and then – much worse- comparing that weekly data point with the prediction for monthly smoothened data, come on now… that’s right up there with putting some instrumental temperature record average for one hot year at the end of a multiyear smoothened proxy graph for temperatures and then saying “look! We are here! See this gap!”.
So, in regards to potentially “jumping the gun”, I agree with Luis
(Luis Dias says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:55 am
The graph is too noisy to take any kind of “aha” moment… it’s still very possible for the graph to catch up to the prediction. Check the spikes.)
Perhaps it’s all in the language that was used to frame the unusual low.
This is something YOU REALLY DON’T EXPECT TO SEE this far into solar cycle 24. But there it is, the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite shows the sun as a cueball: The Ap index being zero, indicates that the sun’s magnetic field is low, and its magneto is idling rather than revving up AS IT SHOULD BE on the way to solar max. True, it’s just a couple of data points, but as noaa’s swpc predicts the solar cycle, WE SHOULD BE further along instead of having a wide gap: …
It’s like saying “we should be seeing this, but”, “Ice breaks off sooner than expected”, etc. The mentality that something is “wrong” with reality when reality doesn’t match a prediction is something I’m accustomed to see among ‘warmistas’, and wish can be steered clear from among the more scientifically inclined here. If you go jump at every low temperature and low solar activity datapoint, disturbingly similar to how CAGW-hotheads send out press releases (a la the tunes of “This is much worse than expected”, “according to our predictions, this wouldn’t be happening until so many years from now”, etc.) whenever there’s unusually hot weather, or as some hype any solar flare, then you begin to lose the scientific high ground, IMO. Same goes for the polar ice data reporting.
In the long run, I think it’s simply better to wait a couple weeks or months, or ideally: until the smoothened data catch up with the smoothened predictions you want to compare ‘m too. Or just shoot the shoulds and word it a bit more objectively.
Ya know what I mean? :-/

@Christolph Dollis

“And the Sun’s corona is millions of degrees hotter than the photosphere. These simple observations point to the energy source of the Sun being external. ”
Really? What rubbish. – Anthony
Well, why don’t you be the one person to explain it then, because no one else has.

You’re conflating temperature, an intensive property of matter, with energy, an extensive property of matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_and_extensive_properties
Temperature, being intensive, does not depend on the amount of matter. A gram of water can have the same temperature as an entire ocean.
Heat energy, measured in joules or calories, being extensive, does depend on the amount of matter, in an additive way. A gram of water, even if heated to a million degrees, does not contain as much energy as an entire ocean of water.
Conservation Law: Energy is always conserved. There is no conservation law for Temperature.

James F. Evans says:
December 23, 2010 at 6:23 pm
MDR states: “If there corona were gone, the change in the radiative energy flux incident on earth would be changed by only a small, fractional amount.”
Pure speculation
We don’t know what the situation would be if the “corona were gone”.
And, let’s hope we never find out!

—
Why not? I think it would be interesting from a scientific perspective. It’s likely that (at least some) aspects of the conventional wisdom would be challenged.
In fact, from your “let’s hope we never find out” comment, it seems that you do indeed know that a missing corona would be an overall negative. Please fill me in; I’d like to know.

Mac the Knife said:
“From unforgiving experiences, I know there is far more to fear from “big bad snow and ice”, be it ‘weather’ or ‘climate change’ induced, than there will ever be from 3C of ‘global warming’. ”
———————————————————————–
Well said, Mac. From a human perspective, it would be better if the AGW crowd was right. There are good reasons why the tropics are populated, and the poles are not.
Where did you live?

Sorry for getting a bit off topic,… just blowing some steam.
Here in Vancouver BC, it’s relatively balmy, but that is normal. There was some dusting by snowflakes about a month ago. 2 inches. It is still likely that there would be some cover later in January/February.
I remember looking at the graph of ice age periods years ago and it was quite clear to me that we are nearing the end of the interglacial. In fact, we seem to be a bit past that. I wish it were possible to keep it that way, but I have little illusions that we can change the underlying nature of the cyclical phenomenon. Not that far into the future, we will be freezing our butts off. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of meat popsicles as a result. Yea, I too wish it was really globally warming out there, my decrepit arthritic bones would welcome it with “open arms”.

Jay Curtis says,
The sun has been as smooth as a baby’s butt for more than a few days now. What are the odds it will climb back out of the current funk? Maunder Minimum on the way?
Anyone?
It’s too early to tell. If the LP effect continues, it would be a Maunder event instead of a Dalton event. As of now it LP is on track. See
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png

Mac the Knife says:
December 23, 2010 at 1:37 pm
yep this is correct…………
when the nearest corner market shelves are bare, and the trucks can not get through , and refill the shelves………………..

Leif Svalgaard says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Or we could have a Sporer Minimum, or a totally new breed of minimum.
It acts just like our weather, with no two winters or summers alike.
Right now, it’s got wavy coronal bands where AR’s should be, and weak spots pop in and out like bubbles in a pan about to boil.
There is also a part of the north and south hemisphere AR bands that meet in a V.
As for our climate, it’s not looking so hot (pun intended).
I say the Solar Cycle is about to crash, and we will once again learn why past civilizations feared/revered/stood in awe of the Sun.

Thank you John Day, for your explanation that temperature is not a measurement of energy – you have managed to do so more succinctly than I.
And thanks to Mac the Knife, for reminding us that we who live in temperate climes may experience some real hardship if, as is likely in the UK, we cannot import electrical power from France, because they need all their power for themselves; and worse, if we wake one morning to find no water. No water, plenty snow to melt, but no power to melt it. And that’s just the start…
Enough. ‘Tis the festive season, and so may I wish you all at WUWT, and our esteemed posters and commenters, a very Happy Christmas.

Holugu says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:09 pm
we really can’t see the “evolution” of stars.

Leif’s written explanation is good, but from the “picture is worth a thousand words” department, try this video too.

MDR, cool clip. Epicycles worked very well too, I hope you know that.

Holugu says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:41 pm
MDR, cool clip. Epicycles worked very well too, I hope you know that.

—
Thanks.
It seems that you are suggesting that present knowledge regarding stellar aging is going the way of geocentrism. Can you offer any other theories that are on equal footing as the current stellar-aging conventional wisdom? I am open to considering any idea that explains the appearance and properties of most stars in the sky (such as the final brightness-color diagram shown in the video) to the same degree as the conventional wisdom does.
BTW, yes, I’m aware of epicycles, you will be glad to know. Aside form their being a splendid example of something that worked (until they didn’t), they also happen to be the current poster children for a “fallacy of irrelevance” argument in scientific discourse. (I hope you know that.)

There can be no argument about the theory of thermonuclear fusion – we tested this to destruction with the hydrogen bomb!

Leif, the image you posted has no “lines”. What it shows is what plasma physics terms double layers.
Imagine it as a translucent sleeves–don’t be fooled by the scale that to a large degree compresses the phenomenon into what you perceive as quasi-lines (your approach reminds me of a story of 6 blind men trying to describe an elephant based on a part each of them was able to get by a tactile exploration–the trunk, the tail and the legs… you may guess what the “consensus” was). These “lines” are nearly as wide as earth and often even wider. The discharge is a collection of sheets that form sleeves, often within themselves onion style (example: imagine 3 sleeves of very translucent material nested within each other. When looking at this arrangement, due to low density you can perhaps barely distinguish the “face” of the main sleeve, it may be rather a hint of it than something out there, but since the perspective would compress the “sides” so that there is a perception of density, you would see the outlines of the sleeves, as 6 lines. But there are no lines, are they? It is just your perception (or the perception provided by extension of your senses by tools/gadgets) that gives you an impression of “lines”. Nature does not have wires to transport a charge, it does it by forming it’s own “wires” in the form of double layers and as someone mentioned Birkeland currents–they are the same phenomenon, except in more compressed arrangement.
I agree with your statement that “Science is important to our society, civilization, and indeed humanity”. However, you need to bear in mind that what science is — a suite of tentative models of reality. I think this aspect of science, it’s tentative nature, is not hammered enough into heads of students and then they get the impression that the current set is “all there is and don’t tell me otherwise”. Never was and never will be–due to our inability and a lack of capacity to perceive most of the reality in a direct fashion. That is the true power of science–the concept that our models are tentative representations of reality, otherwise you end up with a temporary dogma not that far removed from religion. I suppose we don’t have to go too far to see examples of it right on this site–specifically the phenomenon of the AGW religious movement.

I do have some beef with plasma cosmologists–they sometimes tend to get locked into their model and don’t consider other possibilities. But not too often and in most cases, their explanations are more internally consistent that those of “standard” cosmology, the later having holes so large that you could drive VY Canis Majoris through it. Just for the fun, google “astronomers puzzled” or “cosmologists puzzled”. Well, no matter, “epicycles” come always to the rescue.

Roger Longstaff says:
December 24, 2010 at 2:32 am
There can be no argument about the theory of thermonuclear fusion – we tested this to destruction with the hydrogen bomb!
True, but I remember myself as a kid (or a bit grown kid… a teenager, 14) giving a lecture in 1968 about the controlled fusion progress and the harnessing it, that seemed to be just around the corner. It is still there around the corner, darn it!
As the stellar theory goes, the observations do yield results that in many instances contradict the fusion model.
BTW, did you know that some high energy lightning bolts can not only produce x-ray and gamma rays showers, but also apparently “transmute” elements? I had a HD crash recently, so lost a reference, but someone noticed that beside the x-ray/gamma shower, there was an unaccounted presence of isotopes, if I recall correctly, of sulfur and kalium. Which is curious, I seem to recall a segment from Homer’s Odyssey:
“Zeus thundered and hurled his bolt upon the ship, and she quivered from stem to stern, smitten by the bolt of Zeus, and was filled with sulfurous smoke.”
There is a few more of similar utterances there. You may not need a nuclear furnace to transmute elements. Electricity may do the trick too.

Leif Svalgaard says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:05 pm
It all depends on if the Livingston & Penn effect holds up or not. If it does, we’ll have a Maunder Minimum, if not, just a ‘normal’ small cycle, like 100 years ago
That’s a big statement Leif, especially as you have stated not that long ago we are not heading into a grand minimum. The L&P effect is just code for grand minimum…nothing new here, but I would be interested in learning how you foresee a possible Maunder minimum episode, this type of minimum occurs very rarely over the Holocene?

A peer-reviewed paper, Astronomy Letters, 2005:
ELECTRON ACCELERATION BY ELECTRIC FIELDS NEAR THE FOOTPRINTS
OF CURRENT-CARRYING CORONAL MAGNETIC LOOPS
V. V. ZAITSEV
Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract: “We analyze the electric fields that arise at the footpoints of a coronal magnetic loop from the interaction between a convective flow of partially ionized plasma and the magnetic field of the loop. Such a situation can take place when the loop footpoints are at the nodes of several supergranulation cells. In this case, the neutral component of the converging convective flows entrain electrons and ions in different ways, because these are magnetized differently. As a result, a charge separating electric field emerges at the loop footpoints, which can efficiently accelerate particles inside the magnetic loop under appropriate conditions. We consider two acceleration regimes: impulsive (as applied to simple loop flares) and pulsating (as applied to solar and stellar radio pulsations).We have calculated the fluxes of accelerated electrons and their characteristic energies. We discuss the role of the return current when dense beams of accelerated particles are injected into the corona. The results obtained are considered in light of the currently available data on the corpuscular radiation from solar flares.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d32j212710843216/
“INTRODUCTION
Much of the energy in solar and stellar flares is released in the form of energetic particles. The bulk of the electrons and ions in impulsive solar flares are accelerated to energies of 100 keV and 100 MeV, respectively (Miller et al. 1997) and produce hard X-ray and gamma-ray line emission.”
Many of these “energetic particles” eventually interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere and potentially effect Earth’s energy balance, one expression of which is climate — In other words, the Sun’s over all energy level effects the Earth’s climate.
Is Dr. V. V. Zaitsev of the Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the “usual suspects pushing pseudo-science and nonsense”?

For those interested, here’s the monthly sunspot
counts from 1749 into 1995:
http://www.matpack.de/Info/Astronomy/Sunspots_Monthly.html
It’s my impression that the monthly counts before 1770
aren’t 100% reliable.
Safe and Happy Holidays too all !

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “Reconnection is observed in space and in the laboratory, e.g. [the Princeton website]”
http://mrx.pppl.gov/
But the Princeton website uses “frozen-in” magnetic fields in an infinitely conductive plasma as an a priori assumption, a false assumption, one that fails to describe space plasma or laboratory plasma.
From the Princeton website:
“In plasma physics, it is well known that magnetic field lines are “frozen-in” to an infinitely conductive plasma… this means that infinitely conductive plasmas will not diffuse across field lines and mix.”
This is a false statement.
In opposition, real space plasma and laboratory plasma has been repeatedly observed & measured to have resistivity, and, thus, can sustain an electric field, i.e., the V.V. Zaitsev paper linked to in my previous comment and numerous other peer-reviewed published papers.
This is the framework of the analysis & interpretation employed by scientists studying the Electric Double Layer process in laboratory plasma physics and space plasma physics.
The Electric Double Layer analysis & interpretation employs formal mathematical equations which encompass & constrain all the forces and particles encountered in the plasma environment.
These astrophysicists subscribe to the Current Disruption Theory, which encompasses the Electric Double Layer process.
Dr. Svalgaard, why do you cite the Princeton website when the premise of its experiments does not reflect what plasma physicists have observed in nature, both in laboratory plasma and space plasma?
In regards to the Princeton experiments, how can a theoretical model which relies on an a priori assumption which doesn’t exist in nature, and, thus, is misleading because it fails to consider all the forces present in nature, i.e., electric fields, still be a valuble analytical tool for understanding how plasmas behave in nature?
Doesn’t Science want to understand plasma as it actually behaves in laboratory experiments and in space plasmas?

For heaven’s sake, I’m just a grade school teacher, a special ed one at that, and I get what Leif is saying. Not because of his posts, but by reading the contents of the links and books he has recommended.
A dose of discernment is needed here regarding science (and for some a larger dose). Yes, some of science stinks in the catastrophic warming writings, but that doesn’t mean all science stinks.

Pamela Gray, what your post demonstrates is a fair degree of a need for conformity and deference to authority. There is really nothing wrong with it, a majority of people is “built” or if you prefer, “wired”, that way. It is a social mechanism that has a social fitness value, if not a survival value in “interesting” times..
Once again, what science creates are models, approximations of reality, because the physical reality is not accessible to us directly. Unfortunately, this aspect of science is not stressed enough and hubris is the flip side then.
Leif,
It is a holiday time and my attention is thusly oriented where it should be during holidays. I’ll try to respond in the next few days with the CMEs details/sketch and also provide falsification data for the fusion/HR model–I think we may have about 3 cases that are the proverbial VY Canis Majoris holes in the standard edifice.
Just out of curiosity… if I have data that falsify the fusion/HR model, will you accept it? Or will you try to find proper epicycles so the model remains intact? Something tells me that you would go by the second route.

My bad, “electromagnetism” is not used, but “electromagnetic” is used several times in the section of the paper, titled, 5.3. Instabilities and Time-Dependent Effects.
My mistake. This section will be fully discussed with the rest of the paper after the holiday.

Leif Svalgaard says:
December 24, 2010 at 11:46 pm
First, the Maunder was not a ‘disruption’, but simply that the spots were too weak to be seen. Second, I have no idea how long the minimum might be and I take a dim view of cyclomania. The Spoerer minimum was probably ‘deeper’ in the sense of less activity, but was shorter lived.

Disruption, too weak, L&P, grand minimum….who gives a hoot, the sun was in a funk. By stating a Maunder type minimum you are also stating the depth and length. Your views on cycles is not important but to correct you the Sporer was most likely the longest grand minimum of the Holocene.
The background problem is that you do not have any forecasting ability when it comes to grand minima. Science is proven by the ability to forecast and hindcast with accuracy.

Jimmy Haigh says:
December 24, 2010 at 9:49 pm

Jimmy Haigh says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
December 24, 2010 at 9:45 pm
…my point being that could one survive a lunar month without water or food as an aspiring Muslim would have to do had he/she been trying to promote the religion inside the Arctic Circle…

Little use though I have for Islam, I must object to your comment. If you are referring to Ramadan, the fasting is during daylight hours only. Come dark, and they eat like the pigs they won’t eat.

7 days with no sunspots!

John Day says:
December 25, 2010 at 7:01 am
So the real disruption seems to be our human perception of what’s going on, because our eyes happen to be tuned to wavelengths where the sunspots will seem to have completely vanished. But they’re still there, broadcasting brightly in microwaves, EUV and Xray.
Not so, EUV is severely disrupted right now. Link and again.

> The RF fluxes and other EMR radiations … don’t require human
> interpretation
I meant to say “don’t require as much human interpretation as sunspot counts require, just to produce a measurement”. Of course, all measurements are information which need to be interpreted to discover knowledge.

Leif Svalgaard says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:41 am
Of course not, nobody has. Grand Minima occur at random with no periodicity.
Nobody in your part of the science world perhaps. My robust data lines up with previous slowdowns during the recent past along with the Holocene. This same data can be simply extrapolated into a grand minimum starting at SC24 and ending after SC25.
Most acknowledge the Dalton Minimum is a grand minimum, only those who refuse to see the regular grand minimum events that occur over the Holocene suggest that the monster Maunder type events are the only events worth considering. This may suit the followers of the Babcock branch but it is “blinkers on” science when you close your eyes just to follow a theory. My data not only agrees in a timing sense but also in the strength of the downturn. The data is solid and can be tested, I have a 200 year prediction, but the real test is happening right now.
I am not interested in debating the detail here….let’s just observe and see if the prediction sticks.

Leif Svalgaard says:
December 25, 2010 at 6:46 pm
OK, come back in 200 years and let’s see then. If you have a 200-yr prediction you also have a 200,000 year prediction as the planets cycle regularly enough for that.
The next 2 cycles have the opportunity to prove the theory wrong, if so its pack up time. But at least I have the balls (and data) to put it on the line. The current JPL data only goes to 3000AD, so 200,000 years is difficult. My theory stands alone and is quite different from those you mentioned, but you would need an understanding to appreciate that.

“I personally think it’s likely that these grand minima are related to climate changes, perhaps due to UV absorption, but there is no widely accepted mechanism for explaining this cooling phenomenon. It’s still an area of intense debate. ”
Primitive man didn’t know the precise mechanisms for very much but he knew enough to make decisions on the basis of observed events and ensuing consequences.
I’m inclined to think it is primarily a matter of changes in ozone quantities due to a fine balance between destruction at levels above the stratopause and creation below the stratopause (apparently arounf 45km where the sign of the atmospheric response appears to reverse). That does of course involve UV absorption issues but I think it also involves a whole range of atmospheric chemical reactions to changing solar wavelengths and particle compositions.
UV on its own just doesn’t do the job.
What we seem to have here is a situation whereby very small solar changes produce not so small energy flow consequences by changing the chemical composition of our atmosphere with differential warming and cooling effects at different levels. I don’t think simple radiative physics is much help where chemical processes intervene.
That then affects the vertical temperature profile throughout our atmosphere to change tropospheric pressure distributions and thus the quantities of solar shortwave energy entering our oceans.
So we see what is primarily internal system variability but arising from atmospheric sensitivity to variations in the composition and relative proportions of the photons and particles that reach us from the sun.
It isn’t a big deal from the planet’s point of view but our lives and works are highly sensitive to local and regional weather so our perceptions make it seem like a big deal.
The so called ‘coincidences’ are just too frequent to be ignored.

Thanks John, that is a resonable analogy.
From what I say certain observations must necessarily follow otherwise my proposals will be falsified.
Some such observations are available such as :
The generally cooling mesosphere and stratosphere when the sun was more active.
The cessation of such cooling and the beginning of slight warming as the sun became less active.
The discovery that from 45 km upward (the stratopause is around 50km) the ozone quantities increased between 2004 and 2007 when the sun was quiet despite the expectation that they would have fallen. Quantities decreased as expected below that level.
The fact that the jets moved poleward when the sun was more active and the stratosphere cooled. Under conventional climatology the stratosphere should have warmed with the jets shifting equatorward as happens during so called sudden stratospheric warming events.
Cloudiness and albedo both began to increase as the jets started to shift back equatorward.
The Arctic Oscillation turned more negative around the same time and has now become very negative.
Since the same processes all presumably occurred in the MWP it cannot be anything to do with human emissions.
So, there are lots of varied bits of persuasive evidence that have drawn me to these conclusions. We need some more observations to clarify the issue once and for all but I am confident that the process is already in hand.

John,
IANAC either.
It is my own but has no name yet as I’m not yet satisfied that it is complete. I’m building it step by step with the assistance of critics who make points that require me to refine it.
You can try my series of articles at climaterealists.com which record my gradual steps towards my proposed scenario.
This is the latest:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645

John Day;
Aaggh! A Yogi misquote!
“‘You can see a lot just by looking.”
No messing with YB’s verbs, please.

Well, time has past, so I will only engage in brief discussion of the “reconnection” paper presented by Dr. Svalgaard:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Plasma-Reconnection.pdf
From the paper:
“To an excellent approximation, magnetic fieldlines are frozen to the plasma and magnetic flux is conserved.”
Many, if not almost all “magnetic reconnection” papers rely on the above “approximation”, a priori assumption, where magnetic fieldlines are “frozen in” to infinitely conductive plasma.
But it is not an “excellent” approximation, rather, it is a misleading a priori assumption, because both space plasmas and laboratory plasmas are tenuous, not fluid, and have resistivity. The lower the percentage of ionized particles in the body of tenuous plasma, the higher the resistivity, but never in tenuous plasma, space or laboratory is resistivity zero.
Now, I mentioned that the paper does mention use the term, “electromagnetic”, but as is true to form for “magnetic reconnection” papers, the exception proves the rule.
The paper uses the term “anomalous resistivity” to describe regions of higher resistivity in bodies of plasma, as if resistivity is rare in bodies of tenuous plasma, but that is false and, again, misleading because zero resistivity does not exist in tenuous plasmas.
The elephant in the room is that when ions, electrons (charged particles, each with electric force), and magnetic fields interact, and charged particles are accelerated, thus, demonstrating electric fields exist, this is an environment where the fundamental force of electromagnetism holds sway.
So-called “magnetic reconnection” is an obfiscation.
Current sheets are referenced in the paper, but current sheets are the result of electric fields. when “magnetic reconnection” papers discuss “electron dissipation regions”, really, in point of fact, the papers are discussing electron acceleration regions.
Magnetic fields can deflect or change charged particle direction, but they don’t accelerate charged particles, electric fields do.
The paper discusses “magnetic self-organization” without any reference to Irving Langmuir, who first observed and described the self-organizing ability of plasma and identified such self-organizing ability as a function of the principles of electromagnetism.
Yet Zweibel & Yamada make no mention of Langmuir’s prior work. This is tantamount to academic fraud.
But let’s take a look at a UCLA paper, that while is a “reconnection” paper, at least is more forthright about the role of electric fields in the so-called “magnetic reconnection” process:
The paper employs the study of magnetic fields to, in part, derive a resolution of the charged particle current flows. As the authors contend resolution of the current flow is important for understanding the larger system. This fits well with what I’ve been pointing out: Mapping the movement of charged particles is critical for understanding the dynamics when two bodies of plasma collide. The authors conducted the experiment where bodies of magnetized plasma were collided within a background magnetized plasma. This is a laboratory experiment which offers a rough approximation of space plasma dynamics.
Space plasma environments tend to be “rivers within larger rivers of plasma”. Or distinct, structured flows of plasma within larger flows of plasma. In numerous instances, these structured flows of plasma take the form of magnetic flux tubes.
A quoted passage from the UCLA paper:
Caption for first image: “Three dimensional field lines taken from a volumetric data set in an experiment in which two laser produced plasmas collide. Data was acquired at 30,000 locations in a 3D volume in the LAPD device. Shown are the magnetic fields due to Alfven wave currents. The two Carbon targets that the lpp plasmas originate at are seen in the background. The “sparkles” are the induced electric field calculated from -dA/dt. Note that the induced field is largest in the reconnection region at the center of the image. The data is acquired 5 us after the targets are struck and 6.56 meters and 65.6 cm away. There is a background He plasma (n = 2X10^12 cm-3, B0z (not shown) = 600G)”
To highlight: “The “sparkles” are the induced electric field calculated from -dA/dt.”
http://plasma.physics.ucla.edu/pages/gallery.html
And here is a close up on the image showing the outbreaking of electric fields, “sparkles”, where the plasma density and magnetic stress is greatest:
http://plasma.physics.ucla.edu/images/gallery/BEz656-t512.jpg
The outbreaking of electric fields, mini- parallel electric fields, is due to the charged particles’ electric force interacting with the magnetic field. The maximum electric field breakout is in regions of maximum magnetic field stress and maximum charged particle density — it’s charged particle density that determines magnetic field strength.
The higher the charged particle density & magnetic field stress, the greater the formation of electric fields (arrayed mini-parallel electric fields).
It’s important to examine the UCLA image of the breakout of electric fields in relation to magnetic fields — the two forces are inter-related as Maxwell’s equations amply demonstrate.
This is all a product of electromagnetism, not some unquantified process of “magnetic reconnection”. The term, “magnetic reconnection”, is an attempt to obscure the fact that all these interactions happen within an environment where the Fundamental Force of Electromagnetism predominates.

Re: ““The core, which is where the energy is generated by gravitational compression of hydrogen to fusion temperature and pressure, is 14.5 million K and is by far the hottest densest portion of the sun.”
But Dave, according to the “Thunderbolts” website, the dark sunspots are a window into the interior of the sun, proving that the inside is cooler than the outside!
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”
The real and ONLY question of any merit here is whether or not the electric universe theorists can facilitate the development of a solar model which makes accurate predictions. And just how accurate are those predictions?
We live within an era of social networking. If it CAN be done, people should expect that it eventually WILL be done.
What is startlingly missing from all of these forum discussions of the electric sun hypothesis is an analysis of the claims being made. Wal Thornhill and Don Scott are making the case for a plasma glow discharge model for the Sun — a Crook’s tube, essentially — where the power input is an electron drift current, and the geometry is spherical. Within the EU view, in theory, we should be able to accurately predict the Sun’s behavior by monitoring the electrical current arriving into the heliosphere along interstellar filaments (which are already observed at the 21-cm wavelength).
Anybody who thinks that EU theory is preposterous should really be speaking to the debate of whether or not these ideas can be codified into a working, predictive model … Because if they can achieve that, then people who are ridiculing them are just throwing up noise.
Any model which can predict solar eruptions will ultimately win. Is anybody here claiming that it cannot be done?

Re: “All the sun’s energy is instead mysteriously transmitted in an unmeasurable way through space!”
It’s neither mysterious nor “unmeasurable”. Our radio telescope astronomers already observe the interstellar filaments which connect the stars. You just choose to not read those papers. Look up Gerrit Verschuur.