The Politicisation of Sunspot Numbers

The counting of sunspot numbers was once an academic exercise but has today become politicised in the debate over climate.

At the break of dawn on 1st September, blogs spun into life saying that August was the first month since June 1913 to record a zero sunspot number.

This was before the US National Geophysical Data Center had even had a chance to publish the formal sunspot number for August. Formal data is at ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/
STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY

Now August may well be the first calendar month since June 1913 to record a zero sunspot count but the key word is 'Calendar'. There have been longer periods of zero sunspots but split over two calendar months.

The reason for the interest in sunspots is simple. In Galileo's day the 'Flat-Earther' view of the world prevailed and any other view was considered heresy. Today the view that humankind is responsible for the climate tends to predominate over the view that the Sun is the main factor on the Earth's climate. Both sides in the argument are keen to use sunspot numbers to further their cause.

This politicisation could add pressure to distort sunspot counts. Was that speck really a sunspot ? What would you say if your job depended on you giving a 'politically correct' answer ?

Galileo Galilei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Watts Up With That http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/category/
climate_change/

Sunspeck counts, Sun Does Not have Spotless Month http://www.rightsidenews.com/200809011849/energy-and-environment/sunspeck-counts-sun-does-not-have-spotless-month.html

First month without sunspots in a century http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-month-without-sunspots-in-century.html