We already have enjoyed our summer vacation with a stop at the Grand Canyon but always enjoy a fresh look at that magnificent spectacle. Today’s visit to the National Park System‘s Grand Canyon Webcam yielded this view from Yavapai Point on the South Rim, elevation 7084 feet.
During the years 1999 & 2000 the solar maximum occurred; the time of an 11-year cycle when the Sun exhibits greatest activity. This was the first chance for the Xray Camera on SOHO to observe solar activity at maximum. On July 14, 2000, the camera recorded one of the largest Xray flares to date. In review, this article from NASA recalls the ensuing storm and it’s effects on our planet.
July 14, 2000 — This morning NOAA satellites and the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded one of the most powerful solar flares of the current solar cycle. Space weather forecasters had been predicting for days that an intense flare might erupt from the large sunspot group 9077, and today one did.
“Energetic protons from the flare arrived at Earth about 15 minutes after the eruption,” says Gary Heckman, a space weather forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center. “This triggered a category S3 radiation storm.”
Right: This SOHO animation of an X-class solar flare was recorded by the spacecraft’s Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope at 195 angstroms. This recording nicely shows a flare, followed by a torrent of energetic particles that arrived about 15 minutes later, creating snow on the images as the particles bombarded the camera’s electronic detectors. A second flare does not create as much noise. The duration of this sequence is almost a minute, so keep watching.
According to NOAA space weather prediction scales, an S3 storm can cause the following effects on satellites: single-event upsets, noise in imaging systems, permanent damage to exposed components/detectors, and decrease of solar panel currents. It can also expose air travelers at high latitudes to low levels of radiation, the equivalent of a brief chest x-ray.
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Presently, the sun is between maxima. Although the sun is fairly quiet now, there can still be the occasional flare up.
A truth inconvenient to Al Gore perhaps. And a truth inconvenient to ozone-obsessed greenbats, as well. Gore, producer of the over-represented global warming hype documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” doesn’t take the time to evaluate actual scientific observations, but rather jumps to the politically inept conclusions found by scientific consensus.
Notice that the conclusion made in the article quoted below by a Swedish scientist in 1948 is still the most likely reason for climate change — to wit: Solar fluctuations.
I found this on NRO’s The Corner:
Global warming, 1948 style [Iain Murray]
A scientist friend discovered an article from 1948 entitled “The Present Climatic Fluctuation.” Written by Professor Hans Ahlmann of the University of Stockholm, it begins:
“The present climatic fluctuation has been discussed since the 1920’s almost exclusively in scientific circles, although it has recently become a subject of more than academic interest…Ordinary people are beginning to realize that something has happened and is happening which is of great interest to themselves. The last dry summer, which transformed large parts of Western Europe into a virtual steppe, increased this interest and also caused anxiety, though this drought cannot be said with any certainty to belong to the present climatic fluctuation.”Sound familiar? All that is missing is a documentary by [then presidential losing candidate] Thomas E Dewey on the subject. Anyway, Ahlmann documents rapidly rising temperatures, glaciers melting like crazy, atmospheric circulation changes, species shifting, sea level rise, and so on from all around the world. But he concludes:
“If we find in the Antarctic similar evidence of the present climatic fluctuation as has been found in other parts of the world, we shall be justified in concluding that the present fluctuation is a world-wide phenomenon and probably the result of variations in solar activity which, slow as they may be to take effect, are actually resulting in an improvement in the climate of our world.”How times change!
Stare into this yellow ball for a while and tell me that it has lesser effect than some paltry greenhouse gasses (which amount to less than 1 percent of the entire volume of the atmosphere):
Please read about solar activity and climate in these articles:
Solar X-Flares and Hurricanes
Global Warming – A Hot Topic
Ultimate Global Warming – SPF 2 Million Won’t Be Enough
Solar and Terrestrial Conveyor Belts
Sizzling Solar Snapshot
Scientific Consensus
For a long time now. I have been threatening to create a sidebar item for the all-important issue of Climate and Global Warming. Ultimately, I want to transfer most of the resources I have used into a database of relevant articles sorted by article type. Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but I managed to get a few articles posted and a database window to all articles on this site that reference the “Global Warming” topic. The reference page may now be found on the sidebar under “information” as Climate and Global Warming. Click on it and go to the page and have a look around.
Please, please offer any suggestions, articles and any other information that I can add to this page — I already have used several articles to email my hippie moonbat congressperson‘s staff debunking their insane position on these issues. I’m not certain if it ever gets to her, but at least I’m inserting some sanity into their space.
Use caution — still under construction.
Yesterday, we went to the newly-renovated Point Vicente Interpretive Center. Located at the southwestern tip of the Palos Verdes peninsula, the center’s main focus is on marine wildlife including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, sea lions and waterfowl. They also have an exhibit dedicated to the US Coast Guard. We enjoyed our visit, especially the 20 minute video about whales and other sea life.
I snapped this picture of a raven swooping over the cliffs by the whale watching area.
RPV marine facility is set to reopen
The Point Vicente Interpretive Center, featuring new decor and exhibits on whales, sharks and dolphins, admits visitors Saturday for the first time in seven years.
The Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes has always been known as a good place to see whales. But the newly expanded center, which opens Saturday after seven years of work, takes things to a whole new level.
There are stone whales embedded in the ground, fiberglass whales hanging from the ceiling and painted whales on the walls. “It’s breathtaking,” said manager Holly Starr, who joined the center shortly before it closed in 1999.
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World Climate Report takes a deliberate and sensible look at the relationship between rising global temperature and frequency of forest fires in the west. Warning to Greenbats — The WCR post contains actual science which may offend and confuse you, and we wouldn’t want your little green brains exploding.
The Fire This Time: More Perspective Needed
Some prominent scientists are becoming increasingly restive about the shrill portrayal of global warming science in popular media. The latest round concerned a paper by A. L. Westerling (Scripps Institute of Oceanography) relating an dramatic increase in western forest fires to regional warming and changes in the onset of snowmelt.
Colorado University’s Roger Pielke Jr., one of the nation’s preeminent scholars about how science and society interact, called it “a useful paper that adds to our knowledge and hopefully will stimulate further research on the integrated effects of climate-society-policy.†But then, he warned that “At the same time I can envisage the paper being used simply as a caricature in the global warming debate—Global Warming Causes Forest Fires!—but that would be a shame because fire policy is more complex than that.â€
Well, of course, what he feared would happen, did happen. And the resultant headlines are another sad commentary on how cursory reporting on global warming has become, and how little attention is paid to the facts as they stand. Nowhere, for example, did we read Westerling’s words: “Whether the changes observed in western hydro-climate and wildfire are the result of greenhouse gas-induced global warming or only an unusual natural fluctuation, is presently unclear.â€
Why so unclear? In large part, because the science isn’t straightforward, and three decades is a very short period of climate time.
The article concludes by comparing temperature anomaly with the drought index. Using a “scatter plot” which reveals any correlation between temperature and drought. The plot found nothing to indicate correlation between the two. Nothing to see here, just a random scattering of dots — no lines, no circles, no wavy curves and no correlation.
Of course, Enviroloons and Greenbats will undoubtedly come up with a way to connect the dots.
The Sun in ultraviolet light from Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Can anyone out there tell me why some people think that climate and environment changes are man-made and not because of this seething stellar monster? Anyone? Anyone?
