The Sun's Startling Plunge: Deep Solar Minimum Perplexes World's Solar Science

The world's premier solar scientists are confounded by their own failed predictions for cycle 23 and 24. The sun has failed to rise out of its deep minimum that lasted all of 2008 -- in fact, the sun appears to be diving even more deeply into quiet inactivity. What does the sun's deepening quiescence mean for planet Earth -- already almost a decade into a global cooling phase?

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87 percent).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees forecaster David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. _SpaceDaily_via_Wattsupwiththat

Put harshly, solar scientists do not understand wtf the sun is doing at this time. Their computer models of the sun are proving less than useful -- just like economists' computer models of the economy and climate science's models of the climate. The modelers' hubris has hoisted them on their own petards.

Given the current cooling phase of global climate, what does it mean that the sun continues to go ever more quiescent over the past 36 months -- since entering the current minimum? It is too early to tell. The sun is setting record recent lows in solar wind pressure, total solar irradiance, and solar radio emissions. There is a correlation between solar activity and global climate, but there are other factors involved -- particularly the effects of ocean heat dynamics along with atmospheric thermal dynamics.

If you are one of those who fell for the Al Gore - James Hansen catastrophic warming scam, don't throw away your home heating devices just yet. Gore and Hansen have achieved notoriety, job security, and not just a little wealth through their little scam. But reality has the last word. It's not nice to fool mother nature.