Science
Related: About this forumIs our Sun falling silent ?
"I've been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I've never seen anything quite like this," says Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
He shows me recent footage captured by spacecraft that have their sights trained on our star. The Sun is revealed in exquisite detail, but its face is strangely featureless.
"If you want to go back to see when the Sun was this inactive... you've got to go back about 100 years," he says.
This solar lull is baffling scientists, because right now the Sun should be awash with activity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25743806
notemason
(299 posts)From the NY Times: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/would-solar-lull-snuff-climate-action/
comes this quote: Douglas Biesecker, a scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote: I consider the strength of evidence to be anemic and the reasoning to be highly suspect.
With Science for Sale these days it's difficult to draw conclusions.
xocet
(3,871 posts)That is an incredibly broad statement.
Can you provide evidence of cases of "Science for Sale" so that you might limit your attack?
notemason
(299 posts)Xo, it is not an attack just frustration; scientist at heart, had great interest in the topic. As soon as I started research first article I find expresses contradictions and indicates suspicion. Global warming comes into play and scientists line up on both sides of the issue. And so I can draw no conclusions. Did a google search for scientists paid to deny global warming and only had to type in scientists paid and google did the rest. Would that it were not so. Thank you for posting and I will continue to follow the story as best I can as well as your other posts which I enjoy.
Here is a paper that indicates that climate scientists (only a small subset of all scientists) are not lining up equally on both sides of the issue that you mentioned:
Naomi Oreskes
Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, thenEPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
...
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
...
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full.pdf
This is an analysis of the Heartland Institute:
Heartland Insider Exposes Institute's Budget and Strategy
Richard Littlemore, Tue, 2012-02-14 13:14
An anonymous donor calling him (or her)self "Heartland Insider" has released the Heartland Institute's budget, fundraising plan, its Climate Strategy for 2012 and sundry other documents (all attached) that prove all of the worst allegations that have been levelled against the organization.
It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and "other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies." Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation.
Heartland also continues to collect money from Philip Morris parent company Altria as well as from the tobacco giant Reynolds American, while maintaining ongoing advocacy against policies related to smoking and health.
Heartland's policy positions, strategies and budget distinguish it clear as a lobby firm that is misrepresenting itself as a "think tank" - it budgets $4.1 million of its $6.4 million in projected expenditures for Editorial, Government Relations, Communications, Fundraising, and Publications, and the only activity it plans that could vaguely be considered policy development is the writing of a curriculum package for use in confusing high schoolers about climate change.
...
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy
The paid and unpaid "experts" at the Heartland Institute are far fewer in number than the majority of scientists who work on climate change.
All this being said, it is incorrect to focus on the role of a majority opinion in science. The only position/opinion that matters is the position that corresponds to the observed data - please do note that this last statement is greatly abbreviated.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)with the X class flair and M class flair and the rumblings of a geomagnetic storm rising? A large storm never materialized but the scales were all over for a while. So again I ask, what silence?
This is right now and it does seem more quiet than last week but active:
?
and this:
on edit: notice the sun spots that are above the 50th parallel N and S. That is unusual activity in quiet times and normal during a maximum.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)To try to depict the recent change as somehow odd or momentous seems bizarre, given the history we have. This is in fact quite normal.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)This cycle is close to the early 1900 cycle, thus it's in the "normal" range - just not recent normal. Solar activity had been abnormally high for most of the last century. So at this point it looks like a return to the mean type of thing.
The early 1900s cycle wasn't significant like the Dalton minimum or the much more significant Maunder minimum. I think this is another example of hysterical reporting.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
Putting it in historical perspective: