Solar Cycles, Sunspots, Solar Flares,
the Global Climate
& the Evolution of Human Consciousness
Copyright © 2001-2010, Nick Anthony Fiorenza, All Rights Reserved
Current Solar Flare Activity
Solar image credit: SIDC, RWC Belgium,
World Data Center for the Sunspot Index,
Royal Observatory of Belgium, `May 2003 Image'.
Solar Cycles, Sun Spots & Solar Flares
In this section: Learn about our new Solar Cycle #24; our last Solar Cycle #23; about Solar Cycles in general, about our changing interstellar environment; and about climate change - why it occurs and where it is heading.
Get the facts about global climatic change and step from the darkness perpetuated
by those with their own agendas who propose we spend billions on non-solutions
and into the truth offered by Sol's Light.
Related Articles:
Solar Cycles Cause Global Warming & Cooling, not Humans
The Latest "science" News on Solar Weather & Solar Cycle 24
Solar Cycle #24 Latest Prediction
Credit: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
Solar Cycle 24 is expected to peak in June 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots, the lowest of any cycle since 1928. A low number of sunspts does not mean weaker solar flares, just less occuring.
June 3, 2010 Update
NASA Solar Physics / Marshall Space Flight Center
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
Are Sunspots Disappearing?
Since the longer "Solar Grand Maximum" cycle is over and we will be entering a "Solar Grand Minimum" over the decades ahead, we should start to se a decrease in solar cycle intensity; as well as the start of a global cooling--contrary to the global warming scare popularized in the media. Predications about solar cycle 24 seem to confirm this. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract.
Related Article:
Solar Cycles Cause Global Warming & Cooling
- not Humans
Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA's New Solar Dynamics Observatory Goes Live! The Sun as we've never seen it.
April 21, 2010
NASA's New Solar Dynamics Observatory is beaming back stunning new images of the sun, revealing our own star as never seen before. Warning, the images you are about to see could take your breath away. April 21, 2010 Press Release: First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Solar Dynamics Observatory home page
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
A complete gallery of SDO's First Light images and data: SDO Gallery
Dalton Minimum Repeat goes Mainstream
Feb 19, 2010 - At the AGU Fall meeting, Sami K. Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research announced that he believes the Sun is leaving its fifty to sixty year long grand maximum of the second half of the 20th century. He had said previously that the Sun was more active in the second half of the 20th century than in the previous 8,000 years.
Article here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/15/dalton-minimum-repeat-goes-mainstream/
Two-hour video of this AGU session:
http://eventcg.com/clients/agu/fm09/U34A.html
Sept 29, 2009 Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High
"In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. " The cause of the surge is the solar minimum, a deep lull in solar activity that began around 2007 and continues today. Researchers have long known that cosmic rays go up when solar activity goes down. Cosmic Rays-NASA."
Sept 3, 2009 Are Sunspots Disappearing?
"The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. Are sunspots disappearing? Experts discuss the question in this September 2009 story: Disappearing Sunspots-NASA."
June 30, 2009 Evidence of Global Cooling - Censored by EPA
"The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has done an excellent job of exposing a major cover-up at the EPA regarding a study on global warming because it conflicts with the agenda of the current administration and its Cap and Trade legislation." Global Cooling Full Story
NASA's Solar Cycle #24 2009 Prediction
"An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.
"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.
"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."
The 1859 storm--known as the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare--electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights
so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane
Katrina caused "only" $80 to 125 billion in damage."" Full Story: NASA's Solar Cycle #24 Prediction: June 2009
Note: The intensity of any specific solar flare emerging from the Sun can still be
extreme even if there are low number of sunspots in a given solar cycle.
May 8 2009 Solar News Update
An international panel of experts has issued a new prediction for the solar cycle which takes into account the surprisingly deep solar minimum of 2008-2009. Solar Cycle 24 is expected to peak in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots, the lowest of any cycle since 1928.
April 1 2009
Solar Cycle Takes a Dive - the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century
There were no sunspots observed on 266 out of 366 days during 2008 (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Thus it was thought that 2008 was the low. However, sunspot counts for (early) 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).
Full NASA article here: Deep Solar Minimum
A Solar Filament on the Sun
Image & Caption Credit: Earth-orbiting TRACE satellite, NASA
"Hot gas frequently erupts from the Sun. One such eruption produced the glowing filament pictured above, which was captured in 2000 July by the Earth-orbiting TRACE satellite. The filament, although small compared to the overall size of the Sun, measures over 100,000 kilometers in height, so that the entire Earth could easily fit into its outstretched arms. Gas in the filament is funneled by the complex and changing magnetic field of the Sun. After lifting off from the Sun's surface, most of the filamentary gas will eventually fall back. More powerful solar eruptions emit particles that reach the Earth and can disrupt manmade satellites. The cause and nature of solar eruptions are the topic of much research."
Other Solar Cycle 24 Articles
December 2008
A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field
"NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms....
...This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than we have seen in many years."
Above excerpt from Science@NASA. Full Article:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/16dec_giantbreach.htm
"Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth"
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm
A Renaissance in Consciousness
* Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (ISAS/JAXA) & NASA
Solar cycles and their activity play an intimate part in the unfoldment of human consciousness. Solar flares affect the Central Nervous System (stomach lining), all brain activity (including equilibrium), all human and animal behavior and all psychophysiological (mental-emotional-physical) response.
Solar flares can cause us to be nervous, anxious, worrisome, jittery, irritable, lethargic, have short term memory loss, feel nauseous, queasy, have prolonged head pressure or head aches, have trouble with the radio, phone, Internet, computers, and all forms of communication--both human and technological.
Solar activity, although dramatic, catalyzes, and is essential for our evolutionary process by stimulating radical change and transformation in the organizational foundation of matter, energy and consciousness. Solar activity plays an intimate role along with the dynamic transition in Earth's precessional Cycle the Holy Cross which occurred around 2000 A.D. and which began the "time of change" in Earth's ~25,000-year "Evolutoniary Cycle of the Soul." Solar flare activity (and other star explosions, like supernovas) are the primary catalysts that stimulate a renaissance in consciousness. They provide the cosmic impulse that supports the evolutionary maturation of the incarnate soul--the illumination of consciousness that we all seek.
To participate together in mutual acceptance of all that we have been and in celebration of all that we are becoming is to take hold of this evolutionary opportunity and graduate into the majesty of our Divine Destiny.
Remember, solar activity illuminates consciousness, dissolving duality's paradox - the fear and judgment based monsters within are consumed in Light - old patterns of behavior vanish, while true elegance and majesty of self emerges.
Unconditional Love banishes Fear - a choice.
Choose a new octave of participation in harmony and beauty,
above the raging tempest of the old world.
NOAA's Sun Spot Graph (shown below) is updated monthly on
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
Graph: NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Solar Cycle #23 & Solar Cycles in General
The 22 year Duplex Cycle
Solar Cycle 24 is but the first half of the 22-year solar duplex cycle called the "Hale Cycle." Solar Cycle 25, which is expected to start around 2018-2020 and to peak around 2023-2024, will create the second half of our new 22-year Hale Cycle.
Our previous solar cycle, #23, began in October of 1996. The climb from a sunspot minimum to a sunspot maximum takes approximately four years. The decline from maximum to minimum takes approximately seven years. A typical solar cycle is eleven years. The peak lasts from 2 to 4 years, The cycles are measured from minimum to minimum and range from 9 to 14 years.
The odd numbered cycles tend to be more intense than their preceding even numbered cycles, and the general trend of cycle amplitudes was increasing up to cycle #23. For this reason, many researchers thought that cycle #23 might have exceeded cycle 22, the third largest in recorded history, which peaked in 1989, and could have been larger than cycle #19, which was the largest in recorded history and which peaked in 1957-8, however, cycle #23 was not a record setter. Cycles 22 and 23 together created our previous 22-year Hale Cycle.
Also note that there is a difference between the rate of sunspots occurring and the intensity of any specific solar flare emerging from the sun.
Graph: Jan Alvestad / Data from Sunspot Index Data Center in Brussels
A solar cycle begins during the decline of the previous cycle. The minimum level of solar activity between cycles 22 and 23 occurred in May of 1996. Solar cycle # 23 began in 1996 (not shown in the graph below).
Graph: NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Our Sun's Changing Interstellar Environment
Let us also recognize that our sun (and our entire solar system), encapsulated in its protective womb (heliosphere), is traveling through a continually changing interstellar environment quite rapidly. (The sun speeds at approximately 8,200 miles per minute through interstellar space, currently toward a point in the heavens called the "Solar Apex" near the Vega star system. This does not imply our Sun's path is a straight line, it only indicates our Sun's current direction of movement.) Changes encountered in the interstellar environment (such as in its charge density) may also have a tremendous effect upon our entire star system and in the evolutionary changes in store for us. Strong evidence from the Russian Academy of Sciences (Dr. Alexey N. Dmitriev 1997) suggests our entire helioshpere, is being highly charged because of exactly this, effecting not only Earth, but all of the planets in our solar system, in an irreversible way. Dr. Dmitriev suggests that this is a primary cause of many of the physical changes we are experiencing such as in global warming, ozone distribution levels, and the occurrence of luminous atmospheric phenomena (rather than being caused by man’s environmental tampering). Thus, the effect of our current precessional transition may nest within greater interstellar changes as well. It is interesting to note that Dr. Dmitriev also states that there is probability that we may be moving into a rapid temperature instability period like the one that occurred about 10,000 years ago--curiously the time around Earth's last erect Precessional Cross, the 90° point in Earth's precessional cycle.
Reference
SOHO (Solar and Heliosperic Observatory)
- a project of international cooperation between The European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.
SOHO movies
SOHO Home (European Site)
SOHO Home (US Site)
SIDC (Solar Influences Data Analysis Center). The SIDC is the solar physics research department of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Its operational activities include the World Data Center for the sunspot index and the Regional Warning Center Belgium for space weather forecasting.
SIDC Home Page: http://sidc.oma.be/
Additional Resources
NASA Solar Research http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/
Space Weather Bureau - http://www.spaceweather.com/
NOAA's "Space Weather Now" - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/
NOAA's "Space Weather Prediction Center" - http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
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