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The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

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Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#71

Post by temp0826 »

TheBlight wrote: post #51
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

Regardless of the cause of climate change, on any time scale (even if it is a 100% natural cycle and human effects are zilch in the grand scheme), pollution is icky and hey, I'm walking^W living over here.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#72

Post by teamonkey »

hscontinuity wrote: post #42

We know so much and yet so little. The writing is in the article stating how mathematically they have no model, therefore they cannot truly understand it yet (researchers/academics). This is true for climate change and it's own challenges along with many other applications of similar nature where models are incomplete or entirely missing large portions of data needed to further true understanding of a given process.

As is common in physics, a subject can be extremely well studied, theories can be produced, models can be created that predict future behaviour incredibly precisely, but because we can’t poke it hard enough or with enough precision the exact underlying mechanism remains unconfirmed.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#73

Post by akaru »

precompute wrote: post #67
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

The theory is that we're due for another ice age and that there's going to be a pole shift. Pumping CO2 into the atmosphere would then be the best thing to do to stave off this scenario.

How about we don’t do that? And if it indeed starts getting cold, we regroup?

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#74

Post by johnny22 »

TheBlight wrote: post #51
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

uhmm.. if we have to do that, we'll do it.. i don't see what's ironic about that.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#77

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #45
contravariant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want something to make it easier to find the sun ? Anyway the sun's magnetic fields is ridiculously weak on earth.

Well, one always has to consider the first manned expedition to the Sun and how they'll navigate. Telling time of day would be the first problem as it's always high noon. And star sightings might prove challenging, at least at optical frequencies. (Am now thinking of an SF story set on the Sun in which navigation and timekeeping play critical roles....)

I'm playing with slight variations of this prompt on GPTs:

"Write a short (300--600 word) story about how human explorers on the Sun would address the challenges of navigation, orientation, and timekeeping (including the challenges of starfinding). Ignore obvious effects such as heat, gravity, and radiation."

Results are ... not excellent literature, but amusing all the same.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#79

Post by drmpeg »

temp0826 wrote: post #22

I think there is a more interesting (and longer scale) trend that is less talked about, that the last couple solar cycles have been overall less intense (less activity/spots at the maximums)- http://solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png I wish that chart went further back to see if there is a greater cycle at play. At a glance it looks like this cycle is a slight rebound over the last.

> I wish that chart went further back to see if there is a greater cycle at play.

There is a chart of all observed cycles on the same website.

http://www.solen.info/solar/cycles1_to_present.html

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#80

Post by luxuryballs »

gleenn wrote: post #3

Interestingly this happens every 11 years and also their is a longer cycle called the Hale cycle which is double the length at 22 years. It flips from a mostly dipole where the poles match the orientation of earth to a reverse and much more irregular magenetic orientation. I didn't see anything about how this really affects Earth directly other than what I knew previously about sun spots make Coronal Mass Ejections s…

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