There are no sunspots -- none since December 19th

[Dogmudgeon]

http://spaceweather.com/">Spaceweather dot com

Isn't that a little ... weird? As in "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum">Edward W. Maunder" weird?

Weird ... but not panic-inducing. If this keeps up until 2020, it might then be panic-inducing. And cold.

--d!

[sam kane]

1. just when I was thinking

of moving to Canada!

[tabatha]

2. but a new sunspot is trying to form in the circled location.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

[greyl]

3. "The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century."

September 3, 2009: The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. The quiet has dragged out for more than two years, prompting some observers to wonder, are sunspots disappearing?

"Personally, I'm betting that sunspots are coming back," says researcher Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. But, he allows, "there is some evidence that they won't."

Penn's colleague Bill Livingston of the NSO has been measuring the magnetic fields of sunspots for the past 17 years, and he has found a remarkable trend. Sunspot magnetism is on the decline...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/03sep_sunspots/

[Peace Patriot]

4. Don't want to hear this. Don't we have enough problems? Jeez. nt

[tomp]

5. i blame bush. nt

[tblue37]

6. Why? I don't know anything about how sunspots affect us here on earth.

Why would the absence of suspots be a reason to panic, and why would it make it cold here on earth? (Just curious.)

[Mojorabbit]

9. I think it has been implicated

in several past cooling phases we have had including the little ice age. Maunder Minimum was that one I think
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

[tblue37]

11. Thanks. I didn't know sunspots were involved in that. nt

[Javaman]

7. Actually not weird at all.

It's when the sun has an unusual amount of spots is when you have to worry.

[pscot]

8. The sunspot cycle bottomed

in 2008-09. In 'o9 there were more than 200 days with no sunspots. Since the beginning of this year things have picked up, but a lull of a few days is normal.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Google "deep solar minimum"; this isn't new.

[OnlinePoker]

12. This is the latest SOHO video for 13 Nov to 24 Dec

About 02 December, a couple of good sized spots come up in the North West. They finally cross the sun's surface by 16 Dec. They are probably on the other side of the sun right now.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_mdi_igr.mpg

A couple of good sites I like to go on for sunspot data are:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/

and

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

The second one has some nice graphics to show how this cycle compares to previous ones.