Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Maunder Minimum

The Amateur Radio mailing lists are all abuzz with the news story that broke yesterday about the possibility of the recurrence of the Maunder Minimum. I even posted a link yesterday and bit hard on the hook myself.

While I tend to defer to the experts, I have to wonder sometimes.

At the end of the 70's the media was all ga-ga with predictions that were going around about the coming of another Ice Age.

In the late 90's and throughout the 2000 decade, a lot of people were preoccupied about Global Warming.

Now we're back to predictions of another possible mini-Ice Age again.

What we have to face is that Ol' Sol goes through many cycles.  He'll be around a lot longer than any of us.  What's a mere second to him is a lifetime for us.  What's going to be with the Sun is going to be; and there's nothing we can do about it anyway, when you come right down to it.  So we might as well relax and just enjoy the ride.

Good advice for me to listen to, too!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

PS - I'm still going to get my hands on a KX3 - sunspots or no!

4 comments:

  1. Could not had said it better myself....oh and I too am looking very forward to the KX3 as well. Just having a hard time waiting the the release.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The only people predicting an ice age are climate deniers -- if they're in front of a camera, they're paid by ExxonMobile or some conservative "think tank".

    There is consensus among 90% plus of CLIMATE SCIENTISTS (that idiot 'scientist' on FOX news? He's an economist) that climate change is happening. There's no real question.

    Reports tying sunspot activity to climate change are a red herring spread by deniers. There's no SCIENCE behind it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris,

    No one denies climate change. The earth's climate has changed and will constantly change. It's part of the life cycle of the planet AND the Sun. Tying solar activity to climate change on earth is not a red herring. It's a fact of life.

    And please let's drop the codeword "deniers" - when you really just mean people who you happen to disagree with. Obviously you believe in the theory that climate change is handcuffed to human activity. Others of us are not in lock step. The climate has changed for the warmer AND the cooler way before humans entered the equation. And it will again, whether we're here or not.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:12 PM

    Wow, didn't think hams would be so scientifically illiterate. The popular media gets this stuff wrong all the time, but the science is much more steady state. The vast majority of the scientific publications from the 70's were about global warming, not an ice age. Take a look for yourself. As far as this news goes, terrible reporting again. Some of it is so wrong it's laughable, e.g., "mini ice age in 10 years"? Um, ice ages take thousands of years to start and end.

    Anyway, here is a better discussion of the science by someone who knows their stuff: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/17/are-we-headed-for-a-new-ice-age/

    ReplyDelete