The Sun Has Either Turned a Corner...

...or he's got a really bad headache.

All the Pretty Wandering Poles (or, ALL YOUR MOON BASE ARE BELONG TO US)

Wow. The biggest mantle in... well, the world.
It's actually much much thinner than that, but so what?

Ah, our wandering poles. No, Da-da's not talking about peripatetic Polish nationals. He's wondering if the earth's core, flagellating hugely and quietly deep within the earth (not that there's anything wrong with that) might be having some impact on our nutty weather. And what else might be doing the same? The earth's core has certainly been taking its share of solar abuse these past half-dozen years, despite the lull, what with the existing north-south/south-north geomagnetic relationship between the earth and the sun.

Here's a little review.

Here's one Da-da prepared earlier. Kinda looks like our weather, right?

Our Shady Planet

A study was recently released this past Moon-day, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, about the arctic getting darker, and thus warmer. This they say, and perhaps rightly, is due to the lack of ice reflecting sunlight back into space, lowering the earth's albedo (and that without saltpeter), thus helping it keep a low profile. However, what the study seems to have myopically missed is that there's currently a metric crapload of white snow over North America and Canada, reflecting sunlight like the roof of a Vegas casino.

Compounding this are recent reports of the Great Lakes being totally frozen over. They typically only freeze half-over, like being half-pregnant, the warmer lake waters warming the cold air coming into the Eastern states from Canada. It's always Canada. Now, with the lakes frozen over, the cold air screaming in... from Canada... is getting colder and creating one of the toughest winters in recent memory for those regions. 

This is the easy part to understand. But wait, there's more...

The Long Bipolar Kiss Goodnight UPDATED

Here's this, again, updated.

It's not officially fall -- which is Da-da's natural state, btw -- but the leaves on Da-da's trees, and those all over his region, have been dropping since June 1st. AGAIN. Da-da doesn't care what the mainstream media is saying, as they're paid by the agenda, but the below data points to either colder temperatures, or perhaps heavier leaves. Ostensibly due to reduced solar output (the sun is now in full SNOOZE mode, as Da-da predicted back in 2010), coupled with more volcanoes going off here and there, increased levels of meteor dust in the atmosphere (can anyone remember when we were hit by so many meteors?)... this all basically points to you buying a heavier jacket. Or investing in LLBean. Yup. We're talkin' colder winters. And cooler summers.

Doubt it? Here's a bunch of recent supporting data:

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.

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

A few days ago, the folks at SpaceWeather posted a story on our, "Quiet Sun," then three days later edited it to, "Intensifying Solar Activity." The sun's up, it's down, it's up, it's down, it's... bipolar, and needs to go back on its meds. What Da-da's not seen anyone talking about is the sun's increasingly frequent Bz oscillation between north- and south-facing polarity (not to mention the puzzlingly low 10.7 cm flux). Regardless, from the earth's perspective, it's like switching a light on and off again, with more -- then less -- high energy particles streaming into the poles as the magnetic fields either attract or repel, like flipfloppy happy/sad faces.

What this does to the earth is unknown, though Da-da suspects that the sun's core is... well, flipfloppy happy/sad, which should cause the earth to follow its flipfloppy happy/sad magnetic lead; the earth's north pole has been wandering quite a bit these days, so it's only a matter of time before south is the new north. From magnetic striping on the sea floor, we know that the earth and sun have changed polarity many times in the past, causing what's called 'zebra striping' as iron particles in cooling magma align themselves with the dominant magnetic field present, like little bar magnets floating in setting Jell-O (the last event was 780,000 years ago, which is a long time between snack cups); the Cenozoic has seen tons of reversals compared to the Mesozoic.

What's most interesting is that during these south-facing episodes, both the sun's and earth's magnetic field is typically a whole order of magnitude weaker than when it faces north. Again, we have no idea why, except that the sad face usually has less energy, which is to be expected with sad faces. Interestingly enough, the south-facing periods line up nicely (though it's not very nice) against the record of extinction intensity (southern polarity potentially bringing more extinction events).

What this means is that more high energy particles reach the earth's surface and the core during times of southern polarity, theoretically causing more volcanism and tectonic eventage (the earth has to do something with that extra energy), and potentially lower temperatures due to volcanoes spewing sulphur and carbon dioxide and all-purpose dust into the upper atmosphere. It also means increased instances of genetic mutation, along with huge radioactive reptiles attacking major cities and waves of Sgt. Pepper hippie zombie attacks, but that's a whole other post. Get your tie-dye bullets at Walmart now.

And you thought Davey Jones was dead. He is... and he WANTS TO EAT YOUR BRAIN.