Sun spotting

(Adapted from World Magazine)

Reports that August was the first month since 1913 without a single recorded sunspot took a hit when two leading climate watch orga­nizations determined that one small speck on Aug. 21 and 22 should count as a­ spot.

Nevertheless, the min­imal amount of solar activity is striking given its correla­tion to cooling global tem­peratures. The eight-month stretch from January through August this year was the coldest for that period since 1994. And August  alone was .22° C cooler than August  2007.

The connection of drop­ping temperatures to solar inactivity is not new.

William Livingston and Matthew Penn, scientists at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Ariz., predicted in a 2005 report that sunspots would vanish completely within a decade, leading to far cooler temperatures on earth. Many scientists, espe­cially those convinced that global temperatures have more to do with greenhouse gasses than- solar cycles, scoffed at the prospect of drama is cooling:

But the occurrence of a near spot­less month amid falling temperatures lends-credence to the Livingston-Penn theory, one that holds far greater potential for calamity than even the worst of AI Gore warming scenarios.