By Guest Column Jack Bailey——Bio and Archives--December 8, 2009
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SOLAR MINIMUM: The sun is in the pits of a very deep solar minimum. Many researchers thought the sunspot cycle had hit bottom in 2008 when the sun was blank 73% of the time. Not so. 2009 is on the verge of going even lower. So far this year, the sun has been blank 75% of the time, and only a serious outbreak of sunspots over the next few weeks will prevent 2009 from becoming the quietest year in a century. Solar minimum continuesNow this 73% and 75% assumes the folks during the ‘little ice age’ (1300-1850) and other minimums, when they could see NO sunspots (100% lack of spots), could see what they can only now see with modern telescopes. Most of the current spots can only be seen with a telescope. Don’t forget, sunspot minimums are between every 11-year sunspot cycle. They usually last 14 months. This minimum is into its fourth year….that’s abnormal. ….and here is a graph, from the Greenland Ice Cores and the Antarctic (Vostoc) Ice Cores. Source Copy and paste preceding link, it is a great article about the graph and how the last 5000 years have gone. The spaces between the green vertical lines are cold spells (with sunspot minimums)….’the little ice age’, ‘the dark ages’.etc. The thin line with the arrow shows the decline in temps over the past 3500 years as we procede from warm-up to warm-up. As you can plainly see, the preceding warm-ups were warmer than now (again I say…..”where were the cars?!?”)….and since temperatures HAVE BEEN DECLINING since 1999 (though no one can predict the future)….it looks like were in for a bit of cold weather!....just….How much?....I don’t know. I’ll try to keep you informed. Meanwhile, demand answers from our elected officials!!!!!!....and CO2 has NOT one thing to do with it! The only thing CO2 does is make things grow better, period. It has nothing to do with the temperature rise between 1850 and 1999; anymore than it did during the last 500,000 years of iceages and interglacials….Today, Dec. 7, 2009, the EPA has declared CO2, a DANGEROUS greenhouse gas….well….hold your breath, the 7 billion folks on this planet exhale it every second From a questioning Weather Rock that is wet, cold, and gloomy… ……with more on the way! Jack Bailey can be reached at: smokiesmountainview@yahoo.com
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