Still no sunspots
June 17, 2008
The face of the sun remains, in the words of one researcher, “dead”. Sunspot activity has been at an 11-year low, and shows no signs of surging upward any time soon.
What this means, of course, is the basis of some debate. In the past, a 50-year absence of sunspot activity coincided with what came to be known as the Little Ice Age, a period of time between 1650 and 1700 in which global temperatures plumetted. Whether the connection is a direct one or merely a coincidence is the debate in this case.
Although it serves to note that the global temperature did fall rather precpitiously during the last year or so.
Perhaps in this case too, the Earth will cool again, for lack of energetic output from its star. Perhaps not — we shall see. Personally, I’m not worried, and in fact agree with Mark Shea’s analysis of the situation and news: “I notice more and more the language in the media is shifting to handwaving about “climate change“. Since that’s all climate ever does, ever has done, and ever will do, it will be interesting to see how long panic about it can be maintained before that thought dawns on people and they start asking “compared to what?”"
