Crisis with the Sun?

[Tipp]

May 27, 2010 | 21 comments

Solar Scientists Agree That the Sun's Recent Behavior Is Odd, but the Explanation Remains Elusive
The most recent solar minimum was both long and pronounced. But why?

See this link, something they cannot explain about the sun's low intensity.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-minimum-forecasting&sc=CAT_SPC_20100527

[Sly1]

Okay this is a little tounge in cheek....But even our heavely bodies have recognized the Rising Sun in our country....They (the heavenly bodies) are reacting to the tremendous change we have gone through. It has been so dramatic that we have shaken them up:)

[Tipp]

Sly1: take your point hmm, the heavens have reacted

[discipuli]

we'v only been observing the sun for a small amount of time , basing the sun's behavior on a few hundred or even a few thousand years of data and expecting the models and predictions to hold true would be a great folly .
Whatever is happening to the sun is completely natural and normal , just the scientists cannot produce a satisfactory explanation as yet..

They say that sunspot activity is one of the main causes of climate change but i think those theories have been shelved in favor of the greenhouse effect being the all powerful evil that mankind must fix.

[Tipp]

good explanation discipuli

[Randall]

June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2010/06/04/nswp_med200.jpg (http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2010/06/04/SpWeatherPoster1.jpg)

Many technologies of the 21st century are vulnerable to solar storms. [more (http://www.nswp.gov/)]

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/04jun_swef/

[Tipp]

Thanks Randall, so we have to be careful when the Sun gets up.