NIST and TSI ” unknown systematic bias”

Image from PDF on NASA/NIST TSI Workshop July 18-20, 2005,
R. C. Willson click image or link

The brief presentation linked above shows some of the story, more follows…

More unexpected solar behaviour, solar magnetic dipole has not crossed zero

Plot from Wilcox Solar Observatory
(http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Dipall.gif)

This is fairly important news given the sun is strongly a magnetic entity, moreover this might be in line with some predictions about a kind of magnetic collapse.

Steve Tobias: Rediscovering the solar dynamo

I sat down for an hour with Steve Tobias a couple of years ago and told him about some of the correlations we’ve been finding between planetary and solar inertial motion, and solar activity levels. He listened attentively, but I don’t think I made too much of an impression. This press release heralds a new paper published in Nature by Tobias and Fausto Cattaneo.

Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Chicago have uncovered an important mechanism behind the generation of astrophysical magnetic fields such as that of the Sun.

Scientists have known since the 18th century that the Sun regularly oscillates between periods of high and low solar activity in an 11-year cycle, but have been unable to fully explain how this cycle is generated.

Kepler is crippled: Positioning system broken

Coutesy NASA – click for BIG image

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA’s first telescope dispatched to hunt for Earth-like planets that may support life elsewhere in the universe has lost use of its positioning system, threatening its mission, officials said on Wednesday.

Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope revolutionized the study of so-called exoplanets, with discovery of 130 worlds orbiting distant stars and 2,700 potential planets still awaiting confirmation.

The telescope was designed to gaze at about 100,000 distant sun-like stars, searching for planets passing by, or transiting, relative to its line of sight. Detecting slight dips in the amount of light from a planet crossing the face of its parent star requires extremely precise pointing.

The telescope, the cornerstone of a $650 million mission, lost that ability on Tuesday when a second steadying spinning wheel stopped working.

CERN’s Jasper Kirkby: The Newest Unpublished Results Of CLOUD “Are Very Interesting”

Repost from Pierre Gosselin’s No Tricks Zone

CERN’s Jasper Kirkby On The Newest Unpublished Results Of CLOUD: “The Results Are Very Interesting”
By P Gosselin on 19. Mai 2013

The Latest On The CLOUD Experiment at CERN
By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt

On May 10, 2013, at the online Austrian ORF, there was a rare interview with the CLOUD Experiment director of the European European Organization for Nuclear Research, Jasper Kirkby. Within the scope of the CLOUD project, it is being investigated to what extent solar activity has on cloud formation via the mechanism of cosmic radiation and the impact this could have on the Earth’s climate (see Chapter 6 of our book “Die kalte Sonne“). Here’s an excerpt of the worthwhile interview:

ORF: What is the relationship between solar activity and cosmic radiation?

Kirkby: Cosmic radiation consists of high energy, charged particles. When they reach our solar system, they are deflected away by the magnetic field of the sun. Foremost by the magnetic field of the solar plasma. When the sun is active, less cosmic radiation reaches the Earth. The relationship to the solar cycle: When there are many sunspots, the Earth receives 10 – 30% less cosmic radiation.

Second peak cycle 24? Sun does X-class

Original image entitled “NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of the X1.2 class solar flare on May 14, 2013. The image show light with a wavelength of 304 angstroms. Credit: NASA/SDO”, post processing for the Talkshop, Tim Channon
Original article here

The sun has woken up, throwing out 4 CME during the past few days, one will near miss earth today, 17th.

Solar activity affecting the earth, the link

What follows is incomplete, I’ve decided to throw this out early, let the team help fill in more detail.

Original drawing from 1999 paper

“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
B. van Geel!,*, O.M. Raspopov”, H. Renssen#, J. van der Plicht$,
V.A. Dergachev%, H.A.J. Meijer$ [1][2 details]

Tim Cullen: Illumination from the Geochemical Society

This is the first of two guest posts from Tim Cullen on the fascinating subject of photon production in planetary atmospheres:

The concept of a “fluorescing atmosphere” is generally dismissed as cranky [or just plain crazy] by most pundits and commentators.

Therefore, I am extremely grateful to Professor Mark A. Smith and Hiroshi Imanaka for publishing a truly remarkable paper on the Geochemical Society website that clearly illustrates that photons are produced in the atmosphere.

The blue emissions are indicative of atomic hydrogen [but there are other atmospheric atomic gases that emit blue photon – such as helium] and are produced in many ways [including]:
a) Electrons colliding with atomic gas particles.
b) Solar photon colliding with atomic gas particles.
c) Atomic gas particles recombining to form molecules.

Though less is directly known regarding the haze layers, lying predominantly below the direct reach of Cassini, much is now known regarding the atmosphere above the haze.

Using the Ion-Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) on Cassini, we now know that even in the ionosphere, there is a rich and complex organic chemistry unparalleled in any known atmosphere (Waite, 2005; Waite, 2009).

The Earth Is Hotter Than We Thought

I think there are probably quite a lot of ramifications to this news for climateers to consider which I’m too tired to think of. Over to the talkshop massive:

The core of the Earth is nearly 1,000 degrees hotter than previously thought, making it as fiery as the surface of the sun.

Following new experiments, scientists have established that the core temperature is 6,000 C, much higher than the previous estimate of 5,000.

Using X-rays to probe into the behaviour of iron crystals, putting samples of iron under extreme pressure, researchers were able to examine how iron crystals melt and form.

The new tests, using one of the world’s most intense sources of X-rays located at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the research team were able to re-create the same pressure at the core.

[co-mod:
Here is much better copy, the original press release PDF here  http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2209.htm
--Tim]

NASA Timelapse: 3yrs of SDO Observations

Stunning.