Sunspot-less “dead sun” highly unusual
2008 June 10
Those who have been waiting for a new solar cycle to kick in continue to wait, as the expected beginning is apparently running two years late now.
I know this will have limited interest out there, but when someone says that the sun “continues to be dead,” it tends to catch my eye! Hat tip to Anthony Watts of the “Watts Up WIth That?” blog, who does a good job of reporting on stuff like this. Here’s his post with the explanation of what in the world I am talking about: “Scientists not sure why Sun ‘continues to be dead’“.
Yeah, I’ve been looking at spaceweather.com for years, especially during the last uptick in activity with all its X-class flares, but it’s been pretty pathetic for a long time. “Sun blank today” and “Sunspot Number: 0″ is far more common than I figured it would be after a solar minimum. Sure, there have been a couple Cycle 24 spots, but we’re talking less than 10-20, when the first one was spotted roughly a year ago. Now SpaceWeather is resorting to “While there are no sunspots today, the sun is still very photogenic… blah blah blah.” Maybe there’s a ton of magnetic twisting and torsion going on in there that will produce one giant sunspot (“…and the sun turned black as sackcloth…”).
Thanks for the reference to Anthony Watts’ blog. How do you find stuff like this?
The Sun could be worse off. It could be reacting to one of the Seven Last Plagues.
Agree with the previous comments. Maybe the Sun is saving up for one big blow out. Hope not.
I wonder if someone is going to try to work a fix for that in climate legislation.