Crops/sunspots

[Mondy]

The sunspots have still not come back. Right up to date, we're still getting very low sunspot acivity. In another 6 weeks, my back of the envelope calculation works it out, if they don't come back, we will have the longest sustained low sunspot activity, in about 2 centuries. At some point, this is going to start attracting attention from the people out there who are telling us that the only we have to fear is global warming and of course, naturally, in this collection of liberal wishlists that are going to get voted through the senate. There's huge amounts of money to deal with Global Warming. And, this will another case I believe where the liberals' agenda will be based on theories that are being exploded before our very eyes about the reality. If the correlations of past history work, then we've got a very late planting season coming up at the very least and so we start to count the time because if the sunspots haven't returned by May, then based on correlations dating back to 1804 when the astronomer Royal, William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers of all time, saw the correlation of sunspots and the price of wheat, then we're going to have a shock to the global system, and I believe that that much history should be respected.

While I was on vacation, I read a History of Scotland, and one of the small stories was explaining why Scotland got taken over by Britain at the end of the 17th century. The biggest reason was 6 straight years of crop failure. Now this was the years of the 'Maunder Minimum,' in terms of sunspots, the lowest sunspot activity for which we have proven records, because they only, started keeping the sunspot data with the time of Galileo; and of course, Scotland is very far north, and the effect of cooling naturally is felt the further far north you are from the equator you are, because the tropical zones are such a huge percentage of the actual face of the Earth, because of the width of the Earth, the zones, that as you move further north, you get cooler temperatures, then the effect of any reduction of solar energy is felt much more powerfully. In other words the further north you are, the more damage is done from cooling on crop production.

A thoroughly good read, roughly 3/4 down the page: http://www.rgemonitor.com/us-monitor/25554...d_to_outperform

[Hiya]

Yes he does have a point, although I hope his science is better than his history of Scotland.

[stella]

"then based on correlations dating back to 1804 when the astronomer Royal, William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers of all time".

Herschel never was Astronomer Royal.

In 1804, Maskelyne was the holder of that post.

[Gray-Wolf]

I suppose we all need to be careful of what we 'think' we know.

From the little work I've done since the MWW of the strat , and the potential for a 'top down' approach to forming a warming, the impact of the solar wind on weather below screams out to me.

My fear is a 'busy' cycle 24 and it's impacts on both climate (aside from our puny efforts to modify it) and technology (were those 2 sat.s that had the 'head on' a warning about loss of 'stable orbit' during CME's??) , and not a late or small cycle 24.

We have a lot of folk to feed and a lot of junk we depend on above our heads.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[Nick B]

I suppose we all need to be careful of what we 'think' we know.

From the little work I've done since the MWW of the strat , and the potential for a 'top down' approach to forming a warming, the impact of the solar wind on weather below screams out to me.

My fear is a 'busy' cycle 24 and it's impacts on both climate (aside from our puny efforts to modify it) and technology (were those 2 sat.s that had the 'head on' a warning about loss of 'stable orbit' during CME's??) , and not a late or small cycle 24.

We have a lot of folk to feed and a lot of junk we depend on above our heads.

Isn't cycle 24 already late? And from what, I'm reading, the chances of it being large continue to recede every time Hathaway & co move their goalposts?

I would have thought any 'fears' for feeding the world population would surely be better based on the ever-reducing predictions for cycles 24 and also 25 and the associated impact they could bring? Also, the now-forecast declining oil production vs. still-growing demand, the addiction we have to intensive farming methods and food distribution (which are both utterly reliant on oil) and our reluctance even to just take a decent look at the principles of permaculture for sustainable ways of living.

Dang it, another one half of which should be in the politics thread...