Image above: Dubbed the “Swan” this X-ray image shows massive energy releases from the sun’s magnetic field, even while we are at the solar minimum in between sunspots cycles.
Last week, on the same day Al Gore was giving testimony to congress on made-made CO2 being the sole cause of Global Warming, NASA called a press conference in Washington DC to announce some spectacular new findings about the sun. Of course everybody in the press was so busy covering Gore’s big day, there was hadly any mention of what NASA announced.
What they announced was that a new X-ray imaging satellite called HINODE, launched in September 2006, has seen the first images that explain one of the biggest mysteries of the sun: why the corona is hotter than the suns surface. Magnetic reconnection seems to be the key, and these images go a long ways towards proving the theory.
But even more importantly, scientists expected to see a very quiet sun with the new x-ray imager, since we are at solar minimum right now. NASA announced we’d reached solar min on March 6th. The fact that the HINODE scientists saw huge explosive energy bursts even while the surface of the sun is nearly devoid of sunspots tells them that the suns magnetic field is still tremendously active. The suns magnetic field has been getting more active for the past hundred years, coincidentally at the same time CO2 on earth has been increasing along with the global mean temperature.
But it seems that coincidence makes CO2 a Red Herring.
The linkage between changes in the suns magnetic field and earths climate has been well documented. Global temps closely track solar cycles as measured by sunspot intensity. Sunpots are proxy indicators of changes in the suns magnetic field. The Danish Meteorological Institute first reported the correlation in a study going back centuries. Historic data reveal that whenever the sun got more active, the earth heated up, and vice versa. The best correlation was the Maunder Minimum.
But until now, we could not see energy being transported away from the sun via its magentic field, which is why many in the environmental community doubt the role of the sun in climate change. We couldn’t visualize the sun’s magnetic output. This new tool is going to open a whole new era of understanding how the sun works, and more importantly how changes on the sun link to climate changes on earth.
Of course I’m sure Mr. Gore will find a way to explain this away, since we can’t have any new science getting in the way of a “consensus” and a “debate thats over”.
Inconveniently, NASA also announced last week a new study that shows a clear sun-earth linkage in records kept by Eqyptians of the Nile river, rainfall, and auroral activity which is a direct indicator of solar activity. It seems the sun-earth climate linkage has been around way before SUV’s.
So what’s easier to believe as the cause of climate change? That a trace gas called CO2 that has increased on earth from about 280 PPM to 380 PPM in the last 100 years is the cause, or that the giant nuclear fireball a thousand times bigger than earth a mere 8 light-minutes away has been getting more active during the same period is the reason?
Recent Comments