Wonder why it's so cold

[Robert L. Barney]

The cold year, and this particularly cold summer, are a result of reduced solar activity. You can follow the sun at:

http://spaceweather.com/

Note the sunspot count which is currently zero. Sunspots are magnetic storms on the sun which stir the sun like a spoon in a pot of boiling soup. When the sun is spotless there are less emissions which means it is sending us less heat.

And it is interesting to look at sunspot activity over past years:

http://spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html

And 2009 is on track to set another record breaking year for spotless activity:

http://spaceweather.com/glossary/spo...8augthua3 uu0

Last year was a record setter as well (about 260 spotless days) the second quietest year in the last century (see the above chart). But 2009 has already had 167 spotless days with about 150 days left in the year.

But it takes time for the cooling and warming trends of the sun, to be experienced on earth, because the earth stores heat and stores cold. After the sun has cooled, we are still warming due to stored heat. And after the sun warms, it takes time for the earth to respond accordingly. That's why summer's longest day is at the end of June (the most sun we get in the norther hemisphere) but the hottest temperatures don't occur until August. The same is true in the winter. The shortest day is in December but the coldest days are in February.

So not only is this summer cooler because of an inactive sun, next year is likely to be just as cold if not even colder.

We'll see what the global warming hucksters do with that.