Sorry Iain.

This topic, or near enough, has been my life’s ‘hobby’ (perhaps obsession ?), for over 40 years now, and as discussed in the previous topic, I am, and hopefully without too much ego, consider myself as a communications expert, on high frequencies, and have experimented in the field for over 40 years, ever since being a kid. It was not only my hobby, but also later, my career in High Frequency Communications in the RAAF. The Solar Cycle, being one of the most important factors of that life.

I hope to add something to this discussion from that perspective & experience ? I hope you will indulge me ? I hope it doesn’t become too long winded, and put you all to sleep ?

In the following ‘perhaps diatribe’ (to some ?), I hope to shine a light, on the apparent lack of knowledge, experience, and alarmist views, put forward by these ’supposed’ experts, in regards to this topic, and shed some real world facts on you ?

To begin this saga ?

“The Sun is abut 4.5 billion years old now. It is about 300 degrees hotter and about 6% greater in radius than when it was first born.”
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/solarweek/DISCUSSION/howold.html

Neither here nor there, but interesting a point to remember, when beginning this discussion.

As the sun has been around ‘forever’. it has gone through cycles of warming and cooling, over that substantial time, and, from all evidence and what I have read, will do so for another couple of billion years yet.

Over that period of time, sunspot cycles have appeared on a regular basis, reaching minimum and maximum numbers. The only major climate catastrophe, it appears we have seen over that period of time, has been the ice age, which all seem to agree, appears to have been caused by an ‘impact event’. So where is the ‘empirical evidence’, to support these doomsday sayers, of the causal relationship of sunspot number count, to global climate patterns ?

There isn’t any !

Even the supposed experts agree, that the correlation has not been proven. Don’t you just love these ‘alarmist’ PhD’s, when they come out with these, supposed, research backed, outlandish statements ? For the majority of the time, we get sucked in by them, as most of us, are not privy to the science, or have done any research to gain that knowledge. Hence, we feel WE HAVE TO believe them ?

Ok, to the facts !

“….who has noticed that the period 2014-2015 keeps on turning up in the debate on greenhouse science? ”

The time, mentioned in this extract, appears to be, (most scientists agree), the approximate date of the next solar cycle PEAK. So far, there is NO PROVEN correlation, to the link between solar peaks, (and minimums), and global weather patterns. Rather that going into ten pages of dribble about this, why don’t we just take this statement, as mentioned in your article, on it’s merits ?
It is just conjecture, and theory, and cannot be proven one way or the other. But don’t you just love the extreme views, that have arisen, especially now, when the world’s eyes, and ears, are being tuned into the Global Warming debate ?

“Scientists have known for a very long time that the earth has a distinct 11-year cycle.”

This is also conjecture. As mentioned in a previous posting, all research shows, that like everything else in nature, is not able to be predicted, or box-scored. There is nothing distinct about it. The length varies, from anything as low as 8 years, to has high as perhaps 14 years.

“The last cycle was officially declared over by NASA in March 2006″

This statement, especially coming from a trusted & supposed expert source, such as NASA, is also pure conjecture at best. The fact is, no one knows when the cycle is (has) ended, until a sunspot, showing that the new cycle has begun, has been regularly seen. That appears to be now. 2008. So, the NASA conclusion of 2006 has just exited stage left ?

“They have concluded that, although sun spots may appear briefly from time to time in the next few years, they will disappear by 2014. This conclusion is in a paper submitted to the journal Science three years ago but rejected in peer review.”

This is also conjecture, on a massive level. No wonder it was rejected in peer review ? The people that have come up with this conclusion, have totally disregarded all recorded history, in regards to the solar cycle. It is an alarmist’s view, that cannot be substantiated in FACT. Actually, the reverse is true. For millions of years, the solar cycle, (variable in length), has come and gone. There have been ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’ over that massive period of time, and to say that there will be no sunspots again, is just insanity. To prove that wrong, as stated, it appears that the first sunspot has been observed for the new cycle right now, in the last few weeks. So, there goes that theory right out the window. The year 2014, (a date derived again purely from conjecture, but based on past averages of the length of solar cycles), is when the next solar peak is supposed to occur. So, to say that all sunspots will disappear, by that time, is like saying the sun won’t shine tomorrow ?

“But what happens after 2014?”

So, what happens after 2014 huh ? For my money, NOTHING ! There will be another solar peak, with solar indices, ranging from 250 to 300 every day, and communications, on frequencies from DC to dark, including satellite, will all be interrupted, as has happened since radio was invented, and Marconi threw on the big radio switch ?

I can understand where the argument, correlation, or link has been derived between weather and sunspot cycles though. The following may explain this :

The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of many layers. The D layer, closest to the ground, and only apparent in daylight hours, (disperses at sunset), the E layer, slightly above, as detailed below. The F layer, which splits into F1 & F2 layer during daylight hours above that.

“The E layer is the middle layer, 90 km to 120 km above the surface of the Earth.
The E layer or sporadic E-layer. Sporadic E propagation is characterized by small clouds of intense ionization, which can support radio wave reflections from 25 – 225 MHz.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere#E_layer

During the cycle, irregardless at what point, the sun sometimes lets out large, quick bursts of radiation. This has the effect of ‘ionising’ portions of the E layer of the atmosphere. These portions, have been tagged, and are known, as ‘Ionised Clouds”. These form small pockets of ionised atmosphere, that have the effect of refracting signals from the earth. In layman’s terms, ever tuned on the telly, and noticed long distance signals coming from a distant television station somewhere ? Notice how the quality of that distant picture changes ? That is the cloud’s effect. It is random in size, moves and changes. It can be here one minute, and quite literally gone the next. This is where, I feel, the misunderstanding has come about, in comparing sunspot activity to weather. The term ‘cloud’ me thinks, has caused this misunderstanding. Look at the quote. Look at the agreed distance of the height above ground the E layer is ? No where near the Earth’s weather systems. The only link, is that, relying on empirical documented evidence, it appears, that these clouds, also called sometimes referred to as inversion layers, appear more often than not, around times of equinox’, longest day etc, and develop quite regularly throughout our southern hemispheric summer. They generally peak about Xmas, and being a junky on this stuff, it is great fun to try and see, if we can shoot a vhf signal at these unseen clouds, or layers, and see how far we can get, distance wise. Me personally, on 144 mhz, nearly to Hawaii. That is almost a world record. Maybe one day, if I live that long, I may crack it ?

So, in summary, hopefully I haven’t put you all to sleep, take a deep breath everybody. Mother Nature being what she it, will make up her own mind as to the whens and whys ? We just have to make certain, that with our own greed and misunderstanding or ignorance, we don’t stuff up the atmosphere any more, but throwing chemicals into the atmosphere, that may block the sun entirely. That is my main concern ??

David