The mystery of sunspots

eanassir

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Dexter: You really have a lot of patience-I would have snapped a long time ago.

Eanassir: you should take your thoughts to a more suitable thread(religion) where all the other religious types can hang out and discuss fairy tales about how the sun will eventually break into 19 pieces or whatever. You may beleive what you want, but don't try to feed us your religous doctrine.We didn't buy it, we won't buy it, we will never buy it.

I understand your purpose; but this is not for selling and buying.
It is up to you to choose whatever you like; it is your choice and your destiny.
 

Dexter Sinister

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The explanation: (I created the genie-kind [: demons] and human-kind only that they might worship Me [alone.])

He is not in need of their worship or servitude: if all people disbelieve, that will not decrease His kingdom...
That's not logically consistent, and I think the least we should be able to expect from a perfect deity is logical consistency. If human belief or disbelief has no effect on him, why create us to worship him in the first place?
The explanation: (If you [people] unbelieve, then assuredly God is Independent of you[r belief and worship], and He is not pleased with the unbelief [and ingratitude] of His servants; but if you show gratitude [to the bounties of God], He will be pleased with that...)
Ah, so now you're saying it does matter to him, after assuring me it doesn't affect him. You can't have it both ways. Frankly I'd expect god to be a good deal happier with atheists than he is with believers. We never ask him for anything, never pester him with petitions or demands that he change something, we leave him alone and take responsibility for ourselves.
 

eanassir

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That's not logically consistent, and I think the least we should be able to expect from a perfect deity is logical consistency. If human belief or disbelief has no effect on him, why create us to worship him in the first place?




Ah, so now you're saying it does matter to him, after assuring me it doesn't affect him. You can't have it both ways. Frankly I'd expect god to be a good deal happier with atheists than he is with believers. We never ask him for anything, never pester him with petitions or demands that he change something, we leave him alone and take responsibility for ourselves.

The answer is in the previous reply, with details and examples.

He created them that they may recognize His existence. If they do not worship Him, He can create others; as in His saying – be exalted – in the Quran 11: 57 about Prophet Hood with his people [the tribe of Aad, who were near Yemen]:
فَإِن تَوَلَّوْاْ فَقَدْ أَبْلَغْتُكُم مَّا أُرْسِلْتُ بِهِ إِلَيْكُمْ وَيَسْتَخْلِفُ رَبِّي قَوْمًا غَيْرَكُمْ وَلاَ تَضُرُّونَهُ شَيْئًا إِنَّ رَبِّي عَلَىَ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ حَفِيظٌ
The explanation: ("But if you turn away [from me and listen not to my words], I have conveyed to you [the message] that I was sent with to you, and my Lord will [exterminate you and] make, a people other than you, successors [who will not associate as do you associate]; you will not hurt Him anything [by your association, but the hurt will be on you.] My Lord is Guardian over everything.")

In addition, God-be exalted- said in the Quran, chapter 5: 15-16

يا أهلَ الكتابِ قد جاءَكم رسولُنا يبيّنُ لكم كثيراً مِمّا كنتم تُخفونَ مِن الكتابِ و يعفو عن كثير، قد جاءَكم مِن اللهِ نور و كتاب مبين . يهدي بهِ اللهُ من اتّبعَ رضوانَهُ سبلَ السّلامِ و يخرجُهم من الظلُماتِ إلى النّورِ بِإذنِهِ و يهديهم إلى صراطٍ مستقيم.

The explanation: (15- O people of the Bible [or Scripture: Jews and Christians], now has Our messenger [ Mohammed] come expounding to you many things in the Scripture that you have been hiding, and many things else he disregards. There has come to you light from God and a clear ‘Book’ [: the Quran.]
16-Whereby God guides him who seeks His good pleasure to the paths of safety, and brings them out of darkness to light with His leave, and guides them to a standard [and straight] path [of monotheism, that will lead them to Paradise in the next world].)
A Call from God to the People of the Scripture [or Bible: Jews and Christians]

 
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eanassir

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Well, I've had enough-

God – be glorified – said in the Quran 64: 6
فَكَفَرُوا وَتَوَلَّوا وَّاسْتَغْنَى اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ غَنِيٌّ حَمِيدٌ
The explanation: (Therefore they unbelieved, and turned away; and God was in no need of them. For God is All-Sufficient [: does not need anyone], All-Laudable.)
 

Dexter Sinister

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Agreed. I think it's time to vote with our feet on this one. It's not about sunspots at all anymore, and never really was.

And eanassir, since it appears that English isn't your first language and thus you may not understand that, to vote with your feet is an idiom meaning to walk away from it.
 

eanassir

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Tonington

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Cycle 23 is still not over and Cycle 24 is very late.

Do you ever read from that website Walter? The cycles actually overlap. It's not like the hockey season is over and you start playing golf, unless you're a Maple Leaf of course. Cycle 24 began in January by their accounts.
 

Walter

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Do you ever read from that website Walter? The cycles actually overlap. It's not like the hockey season is over and you start playing golf, unless you're a Maple Leaf of course. Cycle 24 began in January by their accounts.
There is no consensus on that.
 

Tonington

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There is no consensus on that.

And what would need to happen to convince you it has? Anthony Watts posted it has begun, the website you've been posting from said it has begun, what consensus do you need? They spotted a sun spot with reversed polarity, and at high latitude. What other clues would one need to say a new cycle has begun?
 

Walter

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And what would need to happen to convince you it has? Anthony Watts posted it has begun, the website you've been posting from said it has begun, what consensus do you need? They spotted a sun spot with reversed polarity, and at high latitude. What other clues would one need to say a new cycle has begun?
Solar cycle minimum at the earliest in second half of 2008?

7 04 2008

Current SOHO: The Sun is blank again
The outlook for solar activity continues to be pushed further back as cycle 23 spots continue, such as the group of 3 seen last week, but no cycle 24 spots are being seen. NASA’s convened panel of scientists obviously missed their mark of consensus in predicting cycle 24 would start in March 2008. There is growing concern over the delay in the start of cycle 24. Now a new prediction portends more delay. If we go to May or later before the solar min is reached, cycle 23 will be the longest cycle since the late 1800s. Now it is looking like cycle 24 may not get started until late 2008 or early 2009.
Here is a new forecast from Jan Janssens SOLAEMON the SOLar Activity & Earth MONitor web page:
In this statistical research, transits to cycles 12, 13 and 14 were considered, as well as transits to cycles 21, 22 and 23. The current transition towards SC24 was compared with foregoing evolutions.
The start of SC24 is not to be expected prior to July 2008, and in all likelihood might even take place only in the first half of 2009. This conclusion matches perfectly the results one can make from evolution of the number of spotless days. Nonetheless, SC23 would be one of the longest in over 100 years, possibly even in over 160 years.
See the entire article and methods used to determine these statements here:
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Engwelcome.html
 

Tonington

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Right, so if you follow the links from Watts--who himself posted when the first cycle 24 spot appeared--they mention the first sunspot from cycle 24 appearing in January and they link to SOHO who confirmed the first sunspot of cycle 24. A high latitude sunspot with reversed polarity. So, again, what more do you need?
 

Walter

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Is this really Cycle 24 or is it something else?

Solar Science




Solar Cycle 24: Do we count Tiny Tims?

Another week of excitement as the second solar cycle 24 spot appeared…and then disappeared just as rapidly.
I can’t help feeling that with an unprecedented amount of high technology monitoring the Sun with ever higher resolution, the criteria by which a sunspot is defined has become radically weakened to such an extent that it all becomes meaningless.
On Climate Audit commenters noted that the criteria for naming hurricanes had become so weakened that practically any frontal wave in the Eastern Atlantic that persisted for more than a few hours got a name (the so-called “Tiny Tims” of the hurricane season).
So it appears to be with sunspots and Solar Cycle 24. Here is that second solar cycle 24 sunspot numbered for all to see:

Now in order to ascertain that there really is a spot there, I had to first make sure my laptop screen was really clean because it could have been hidden behind a rogue speck of dust and I could have missed it.
Can you spot it? If so, you’re better than I.
Here’s three views looking at the same spot. It may be there in the magnetogram showing the class signs of magnetic polarity reversal and there may be an associated phage (often the precursor of a sunspot) but is there a sunspot?

Meanwhile a few days later, yet another SC23 spot comes into view.
I can’t help but feel that this is all a little desperate. SC24 continues to surprise with its general unwillingness to make an unambiguous appearance.
 

Walter

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April 24:
Where is Solar Cycle 24? Look very, very carefully at the dramatic image of the Sun today, April 24 [above; also NASA’s ‘Soho’ website]. Can you see the tiny, tiny brownish spot towards the top right? That is ‘Sunspot 992’, and it is fading [if you want to know how sunspots are numbered, see ‘Sunspot Numbers’ at the excellent spaceweather.com]. The next 11-year cycle of solar storms (known as Solar Cycle 24) was predicted to have begun in autumn, 2006, but it appears to have been seriously delayed [see: ‘Spotty Science’, November 21]. It was then expected to take off in March last year, and to peak in late-2011, or mid-2012. But, as you can see for yourself from the image, the Sun remains spotless, except for one fading spot. This delayed onset has somewhat confused the official Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel, leaving them evenly split on whether a weak or a strong period of solar storms now lies ahead.
Other scientists, however, are more concerned, including Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut [‘Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh’ (The Australian, April 23)]. He writes:
“The scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the Sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.
What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.
Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.”
Chapman then infers an intriguing link:
“It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.
This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.
It didn’t happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.”
He then explains why these elusive sunspots might just prove to be highly significant:
“The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth’s climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.
Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.”
Finally, Chapman makes an impassioned plea for the ‘warmists’:
“... to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.
It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.
In the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.’”
Brave words, indeed. So, folks, watch those spots!

Excerpt from: http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global...Entries/2008/4/24_Keeping_You_Up-To-Date.html