- 3616 - SUNSPOTS - and global warming? Is there a correlation between solar magnetic activity and weather here on Earth? Since 1710 to today sunspot activity has steadily increased to a maximum we have today. And, over the last 100 years the global average temperatures have risen 0.6 degrees C.
--------------------- 3616 - SUNSPOTS - and global warming?
- The little ice age occurred on Earth from 1575 to 1710, lasting some 135 years, 300 years ago. That period is coincident to a period of minimum sunspots, a quiet time in solar activity.
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- Most all of today’s temperature rise is blamed on global warming due to human activity, putting greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, into the atmosphere. The average car in California puts one ton of carbon into the atmosphere each year. One ton. The Pacific Ocean removes about half of that carbon. Some gets processed and absorbed by the trees and plants. The rest remains in the atmosphere causing a greenhouse blanket that continually grows and increasingly warms the Earth.
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- September 18, 2006, Philip B Duffy from Lawrence Livermore Labs presented a lecture at Sonoma State University offering convincing arguments that global warming is real and is caused by human created carbon emissions.
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- The global surface temperature has risen 0.6 C over the past 100 years, mostly over the last 50 years. These surface temperatures are measured by weather stations here on Earth. Ten satellites made the temperature measurements over the last 25 years and got approximately the same answer, 0.12 C per 10 years versus 0.16 C per 10 years, or 1.6 C in 100 years
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- Other evidence Dr. Duffy presented included the oceans warming, greater global precipitation, artic ice melt, Greenland loosing ice, increasing ice quakes in Greenland, California’s loss of snow, California river flows occurring earlier each season. Then there is the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere:
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------------------------- Carbon Dioxide 280 ----------------- 360 parts per million
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------------------------- Methane 750 ------------------------ 1750 parts per million
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------------------------- Nitrogen Dioxide 270 ------------- 310 parts per million
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- Put this all together and you get a projection that the globe will warm by another 3 C over the next 100 years. This will in turn mean more and stronger hurricanes due to the warmer oceans. Water shortages due to snow melt and earlier river flows. Agriculture shifts where plants can adapt to new temperatures and changes in precipitation.
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- The only way to help alter this scenario is to stop carbon emissions entirely, now. Why not plant trees to remove the carbon dioxide? That only works with live trees, when the biomass dies the carbon is released and goes right back into the atmosphere. The oceans are already absorbing half the carbon emissions. But, the oceans are turning acidic as a result and cannot take much more.
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- The answer: entirely stop burning fossil fuels, now.
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- But, what about the affect of solar magnetic activity on global warming? Periods of high solar activity do not last longer than 50 to 100 years. We are at a maximum. Scientists predict that we will go through a period of minimum activity over the next 10 to 50 years.
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- Sunspots are created on the Sun by contortions in the Sun’s magnetic field. The magnetic field is generated by hot plasma 22,000 miles thick and 124,000 miles deep inside the Sun. The Sun is basically a ball of plasma that rotates at different speeds at different latitudes, the magnetic field lines get twisted around each other and sometimes rupture the Sun’s surface to create sunspots.
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- The number of sunspots and solar magnetic activity wax and wane in cycles of 11 years, however every 200 years or so sunspots all but disappear. When the Sun’s is active the Sun’s magnetic field extends out 9,300,000,000 miles. When it is calm, like was expected over the 10 years, the field will shrink to 7,400,000,000 miles.
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- The Sun’s magnetic shield deflects most of the cosmic rays coming at us from deep space. Cosmic rays are high-energy charged particles hurtling at us at near the speed of light. When they enter the magnetic field the charged particles start to spiral into giant circles.
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- When the Sun’s magnetic field shrinks Earth’s atmosphere will receive more cosmic rays that will smash into the atmosphere and create showers of more charged particles. These in turn will create more clouds that will reflect sunlight and cool the Earth’s surface. Scientists expect cosmic rays to increase by 25% and expect a 3% increase in cloud cover during the period of low sunspot activity.
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- At the same time the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation is less during solar minimums. Less solar ultraviolet radiation means less chemical reactions creating ozone and other compounds in the upper atmosphere. Less chemical reaction means lower temperatures in the upper atmosphere. This too will cool the Earth. Both these effects cool the Earth and counter balance the global warming caused by greenhouse gases in the near term.
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- Scientists can trace cosmic ray activity by studying tree rings and ice cores. When cosmic rays slam into the atmosphere carbon 14, and beryllium 10 isotopes are created. The trees absorb the carbon 14 and the polar ice sheets layer settlement of beryllium 10.
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- By measuring these isotopes over time scientists can trace cosmic ray activity. This in turn traces solar magnetic activity over time. Conclusions are that Earth’s little ice ages correspond to the solar activity minimums. We are entering a maximum activity period over the next 10 years. We expect fewer than 6 new sunspots per month, ½ that we averaged over the last 10 years.
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- When asked, Dr Duffy said that solar magnetic activity will have small to no affect on global warming in his estimation. Other scientists are claiming an affect but from his point of view we do not need to consider cosmic rays or ultraviolet chemical radiation in our models. Even if we do consider solar minimums as helping us, over the next 10 to 50 years, after that we will be at another solar maximum and that will only exaggerate global warming when it occurs.
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- The bottom line we must solve the problems causing global warming now. America is hooked on oil. We need to begin our detoxification with different technology in auto engines, new nuclear power plants to generate our electricity, and a hydrogen powered economy free of oil, gas and coal.
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- It will take 50 years to turn this ship. Let’s hope we do not hit the beach before we are going in the other direction.
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July 1, 2022 SUNSPOTS - and global warming? 3616
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