The Return of Our Bipolar Sun (or, "Is That Your Pole Moving, or Are You Just Glad to See Me?")

Hey, wait... it's June! Get back on those trees! Hey!

Anyone who grows plants or pays attention to trees or has a sun tattoo knows that, all global warming and drought data aside, something's up with the sun. ALL of Da-da's trees have been changing into their fall foliage tuxedoes earlier and earlier, with this year seeing the first yellow leaves on June 1st. Other people who raise plants that do best in hot sun have been lamenting their stunted, dormant appearance -- the plants, not the people. Damn, that's good writing. Ready for an untenable segue?

Trained in astro- and geophysics, Da-da's a solargeek, and he's been studying His Big Hotness for over two decades now (check out his old post, "OUR BIPOLAR SUN") and... well, his conclusions -- besides that the sun is HOT, ow -- and all the sentence dash and ellipsotic ASIDES and confusion the sun induces in (bad) writers... wherewasda-da? Oh. Conclusions! Da-da's conclusions have all been verified by Japanese researchers doing research in Japan  Huh.

The sun is so wishy washy.

Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto.

In that era, known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century. The Japanese study found that the trend of current sunspot activity is similar to records from that period. (The Asahi Shimbun)

With recent corn and soy production problems due to drought caused by global climate change (don't call it global warming, call it what it is: global climate change) -- which wouldn't be as bad if commodities brokers weren't involved in the process, hello CORN LIBOR (and gold LIBOR and oil LIBOR, etc.)  -- this new sun news might actually be a good thing. A cooling sun could help ameliorate existing climate whackiness long enough for us to begin to fix the problems on our end (cold temps would help re-fix leaky methane back under the sea floor where it belongs; no methane hydrate mining please, you morons, it's greenhouse gas value is ten times that of CO2).

Of course, the first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem, so... lay off the pipe, turn off your phone, go for a walk and try to think about these things. Play one of those Kung Fu flutes. Then take down your pants and slide on the ice already growing on the Thames. Just in time for the Olympics! Da-da's pretty sure those fake UFO reflections will look really pretty reflected on the ice. Someone get a shot of that. All jocularity aside, this will mean more changes, esp. in terms of the food supply, so getting that Star Trek food machine production going (yes, there really is one) is pretty imperative. It will also mean more sledding! If you can invest in a ski slope, do it now.

Note: it could take about four years for us to know if the sun is indeed going into a minimum. You angry villagers will have plenty of time to stalk LIBOR Frankensteins into assorted castles for appropriate burning. But wait, there's more. This is the best one. Ready?

Remember Da-da's post from a few days ago, "ESCAPE FROM GLITCH MOUNTAIN"? Look at the pics, then come back to this.

If that crowbar Da-da put in your head can keep your mind open a little longer, you might also notice that lots of hideously huge, planet-sized vehicles have been allegedly appearing next to the sun for the past two years. Could these... these... crap, Da-da's gonna do it... could these SPACE BROTHERS be repairing the sun?? Or... reprogramming it? Perhaps something really bad was in store for us, solarwise, and they've since fixed it? Here's a most recent pic. Look at all the, "glitches."

Ships... er, glitches galore.

And um, if they can build something three-times the size of the earth and camp out in the sun's corona (or go inside the sun), then Da-da's guessing that they know the solar score. Da-da's also guessing that they are altruistic as all get out (part of that SPACE BROTHER thing, along with the tie-dye). And for you paranoid doomsayers, note that if "they" can build such ships and operate so close to the sun, they could just as easily have caused it to fry us all already -- and they didn't. Da-da thinks they're good. They're the sun doctors, fine-tuning our little middle-aged star for optimum life span performance. Consider it the sun's five billion-year wellness check.

Yes, that's a real, unretouched satellite photo of the sun from May 9th.
Maybe everything really IS gonna be okay.