Sun Is In A Funk

I add my conclusions -- as I see it, something changed in the sun's internal systems in October 2005. Are they cyclic, one time, what does it mean. No one knows, since this is the first time mankind has ever had the instruments and ability to observe the sun in any detailed way. Has it happened before, same answer, no one knows. I recall when we were building Apollo science instruments that were later placed on the moon -- What would we find, what discoveries could be made. Pretty much it all confirmed what we were seeing from Earth, various sounding rocket programs had shown what was happening, but not the why. there is a whole lot of stuff coming from the sun, being blown out into space and hitting our planet.

We also concluded these particles heated the upper Earth's atmosphere, and it expanded. Not from the moon, but the nature of the particles observed meant the conclusions were obvious.

The nerve of the sun doing this.

See the details at Watts Up With That. Some of Anthony's readers found the historical Ap data now going back to 1932, and it appears that is all the data we have on Ap. Using that data, here is the latest on the current lowest recorded Ap Index. The drop off happened in Oct 2005 and has continued trending lower since then. Will it go lower, who knows, but the trending says it will. For how long? Yes, maybe no.


What does all this mean? No one on planet Earth knows for sure. We simply do not have the data records for long enough, the instruments available for long enough, nor the understanding of the science involved.

I do think one think is safe to say, Earth's climate is not driven by CO2.

Pure conjecture on my part ...

Something to think about. I offer this as my own pet hypothesis, and like Al Gore, can prove none of it. About 5 million years ago, the Earth started cycling into and out of ice ages. The reasons and science driving this are not proved. I postulate that maybe the sun is a cyclic star, burning bright, then dimming, then bright. Not a huge swing, but enough to exhaust the available fuel for a period of time. Brighter, much more so than just the sunspot cycle would suggest. Suppose the sun burns real bright for 12,000 or so years, then relaxes into a lower level output for 100,000 years, then back to brighter. The ice ages. Who says the sun has to be a constant star.