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MountainManMike
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time to buy into some road salt stocks. |
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Indy
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All summer long I've noticed large coronal holes moving across the surface of the sun. I've always wondered what they really were so I decided to look it up. According to a source I found the occur mainly along the polar regions during a solar minimum but occur most everywhere during a maximum. Well they've occurred along the solar equator all summer long and if you've followed this thread you'd know that was the absolute lowest point of the solar minimum. We are still now in the minimum and right now we have another hole along the equator.
| Quote From Source: | During the minimum years of the solar cycle, coronal holes are largely confined to the Sun's polar regions (although some exceptions have been observed by SOHO), while at solar maximum they can open up at any latitudes.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source: http://www.daviddarling.info...clopedia/C/coronal_hole.html
Here is the latest image from DXLC.
Original Image: www.dxlc.com
Image Source: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
Is this another sign that we are in the middle of a very unusual solar minimum? The quote above does indicate they can happen in all areas during a minimum but mainly at the polar regions. It has been the norm this summer for them to be on the equator. Strange?
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chrisisasavage
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Makes you wonder what CH activity looked like during the deeper solar minimums like the Maunder, Dalton, and Spörer minimums. |
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Indy
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That is a term I haven't seen used before.
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chrisisasavage
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ugggh, I meant minima.
As in each one 3 different minima :p |
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Indy
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The official sunspot number for September 2008 was a miserable 1.1. There has to be a recovery sometime soon right?
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MountainManMike
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define "soon"... |
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Indy
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I don't know. Six months ago? lol. With the sun dimming I have to wonder if the sun pulses slowly over hundreds or thousands of years. Going from a dim state (relative) to a bright state (also relative). And in those individual states you have your solar cycles that change in intensity based on where they fall within the pulsation. So at its brightest point the activity is the most intense. You'll have more sunspots, solar flares, CMEs, etc. As the sun dims things settle. You have more stability and with stability comes fewer sunspots, flares, etc.
I think we can only speculate since we haven't been monitoring this long enough and I don't think there is a way to reproduce the data honestly and accurately. But the brightness cycle with solar cycles along for the ride would make sense. Perhaps this brightness cycle is very consistent and that is why we see the very route temperature drops and spikes in the global temperature record.
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chrisisasavage
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| Quoting Indy - posted on 10/2/2008 at 03:24 |
I don't know. Six months ago? lol. With the sun dimming I have to wonder if the sun pulses slowly over hundreds or thousands of years. Going from a dim state (relative) to a bright state (also relative). And in those individual states you have your solar cycles that change in intensity based on where they fall within the pulsation. So at its brightest point the activity is the most intense. You'll have more sunspots, solar flares, CMEs, etc. As the sun dims things settle. You have more stability and with stability comes fewer sunspots, flares, etc.
I think we can only speculate since we haven't been monitoring this long enough and I don't think there is a way to reproduce the data honestly and accurately. But the brightness cycle with solar cycles along for the ride would make sense. Perhaps this brightness cycle is very consistent and that is why we see the very route temperature drops and spikes in the global temperature record.
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That's the thing, we have not been monitoring this long enough. It's clear there are multiple cycles in solar activity, without monitoring for thousands or more years, we can't say we know. |
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posted on 9/23/2008 at 02:56
