Since we yet have global warming thread on these boards, and this being the only thread so far that has become hijacked to the subject, I thought this was a really interesting article from Reuter's about the
Artic ice melting to its third smallest area since 1979While it could easily be argued that 40 years of records is far to small to track trends of this longevity, it was still an interesting read, and certainly chock full of claims about this is the impact of climate change.
A few snippets from the article:
Quote:
The lowest point on record was reached in September 2007, and the 2009 minimum ranks as the third smallest behind last year's level. But scientists said they do not consider the slight upward fluctuation again this summer to be a recovery.
What I thought was equally interesting, for those following the topic in general, was
this article, also on Reuters, regarding the surprising readings on the amount of energy actually being emitted by the sun during this "quiet" period.
Some snips, with interesting correlations to the other article in this thread:
Quote:
"The Sun continues to surprise us," said Sarah Gibson of the center's High Altitude Observatory and lead author of the study. "The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually no sunspots."
Scientists previously thought the streams of energy largely disappeared as the solar cycle approached the minimum.
Gibson and the team, which also included scientists from NOAA and NASA, compared measurements from the current solar minimum interval, taken in 2008, with measurements of the last solar minimum in 1996.
Although the current solar minimum has fewer sunspots than any minimum in 75 years, the Sun's effect on Earth's outer radiation belt was more than three times greater last year than in 1996.
Quote:
As the number of sunspots fell over the past few years, large holes lingered in the surface of the Sun near its equator. The high-speed streams that blow out of those holes engulfed Earth during 55 percent of the study period in 2008, compared to 31 percent of the study period in 1996.
A single stream of charged particles can last for as long as 7 to 10 days, the study says.
"The new observations from last year are changing our understanding of how solar quiet intervals affect the Earth and how and why this might change from cycle to cycle," said co-author Janet Kozyra of the University of Michigan.
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