Via: Watts Up With That? (Hat tip: jblethen).
The last time the Ap index was this low was 1933. The December 2008 Ap value of 2, released by SWPC yesterday, has never been this low. Further, the trend from October 2005 continues to decline after being on a fairly level plateau for two years. It has started a decline again in the last year.
This Ap index is a proxy that tells us that the sun is now quite inactive, and the other indices of sunspot index and 10.7 radio flux also confirm this. The sun is in a full blown funk, and your guess is as good as mine as to when it might pull out of it. So far, predictions by NOAA’s SWPC and NASA’s Hathway have not been near the reality that is being measured.
The starting gate for solar cycle 24 opened ayear ago today, when I announced the first ever cycle 24 sunspot. However in the year since, it has become increasingly clear that the horse hasn’t left the gate, and may very well be lame.
I take that as being bad.
ReplyDeleteCARBON DIOXIDE IS ROUGHLY FOUR ONE HUNDRETH OF A PERCENT.
ReplyDeleteThe exact number is 384 parts per million: "As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmosphere was about 0.0384% by volume, or 384 parts per million by volume (ppmv)." per Wikipedia.
Man-made "global warming" alarmists state this level of carbon dioxide acts as a "forcing" agent which in turn traps heat in the atmosphere, i.e., the "greenhouse" effect.
But as I understand it, all of the above is based on theory, there is precious little actual experimental data which backs up this claim.
One thing is for sure, though, a lot of carbon dioxide has been absorbed out of the atmosphere over the course of Earth's history.
And, until electrical energy (Birkeland currents) received by the Earth from the Sun is accounted for in understanding Earth's atmospheric dynamics (including "warming"), no scientific theory or analysis will be accurate and thus useful for Man's consideration with regard to climate dynamics.