Solar Cycle 24 not starting?
By kevindkh15
@kevindkh15 (10)
United States
February 24, 2009 5:22pm CST
I am currently a meteorology student at UW-Milwaukee and would like to start a discussion on this. I think it is disturbing that this next solar cycle seems to not be very active so far. I have been following the activity on solarcycle24.com and the predictions from NASA keep getting pushed further and further back. The longer the cycle takes to ramp up, the weaker it will be. The weaker it will be, the more impact it will have on Earth and Humans. I think its a serious threat because if the Earth cools even 1C, it would have a huge impact on food supply for the ever growing population on Earth.
Your thoughts? Any science people out there?
1 response
@momtrying2makeit (3270)
• United States
25 Feb 09
I do not know anything about this myself. I will have to look into this I am very curious as to what all this means. I guess this is something I should have looked into before I gave a response to the discussion. I have never even heard of a solar cycle before either. Thanks for opening my eyes to this and I am off heading to learn more about it too! I hope everything will be okay, I know things are changing but I still want to keep my head up and pray.
@kevindkh15 (10)
• United States
25 Feb 09
Typically, the sun goes through solar cycles that are about 11-12 years in length. This has been true since about 1925. The shorter the cycle length, the stronger it usually is. Based on this, NASA made the prediction that cycle 23 would end and cycle 24 would start in late 2007. It has been pushed back further and further and is now like the solar cycles in the 1800s. It is my belief that the sun has a huge impact on our climate through solar radiation and other theories. One other thing is the cosmic ray theory. This theory states that as solar activity increases, solar wind increases which causes a lot of cosmic rays that Earth receives get blown away before they reach our atmosphere. Cosmic rays enter our atmosphere as ions so dust and other particles can attach to them and create cloud cover. As cloud cover decreases, more sun radiation hits Earth and therefore causes a warming trend. This theory could explain the recent warmth... and the very recent cooling.
