Is the Sun Brighter/Whiter Than When You Were Young?

[Col Quisp]

A few months ago, I started noticing how much brighter the sun is than when I was young. How impossible it is to drive when facing into the sun, without sunglasses.<br><br>Then I saw several threads over at godlikeproductions.com on this subject (don't make fun of me!). I wanted to see if anyone here has noticed this and what could be causing it?<br><br>Here's a thread for you at GLP:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?page=1&topic=3&message=177470&mpage=1&showdate=12/6/05">GLP</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Could our sun be a white dwarf now? What's going on?<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Gouda]

Col Q, i have to say, i was wondering about this myself. And a brighter full moon too. I have been asking other people about this for the last year, if they have noticed. I was too shy to pose this on a board. <br><br>Now, how the hell are we know this for sure, if in fact we sense it is brighter? Maybe it is an aging eye phenom...or an atmospheric thing...sunsets getting wilder and bloodier. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 12/6/05 6:35 pm<br></i>

[Gouda]

by the way, what's old "535" up to over there at GLP? <p></p><i></i>

[Col Quisp]

There is some evidence to support this theory, or maybe it's just a crock. I don't know!<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html">www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...wstop.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame<br>By Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah<br>(Filed: 18/07/2004)<br><br>Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.<br><br>A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.<br><br>Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.<br><br>"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."<br><br>Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.<br><br>snip<br><br><br>Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.<br><br>To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.<br><br>The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.<br><br>Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter now or how long this cycle would last.<br><br>He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate more than the sunlight itself.<br><br>(snip)<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Col Quisp]

I don't know who "old 535" is at GLP. I don't go there very often because it's pretty silly for the most part. Lots of kids, it seems, who are just seeking attention by saying the world will end on such and such a date. But, it is entertaining now and then. <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

It's not possible for a star in it's main sequence to become a White Dwarf without first becoming a Red Giant. In the case of Sol, the star's surface will eventually swell well beyond Earth's orbit due to an imbalance favoring fusion vs gravity with the outer layer sloughing off as a Planetary Nebula. What will be left over will be the White Dwarf:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>As far as a brightened sky, I've noticed it as well on some days, in particular, I've seen a light-scattering effect that drastically enhances the Sun's light and makes the whole area of sky around it a diffuse white-out of light that's very hard to look at. <br><br>Teller's aluminum particulate/sunscreen legacy must be backfiring. <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

When you start seeing this it will already have been too late:<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://howardbloom.net/planetary_nebula.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[starroute]

What I notice is that the sky is paler. When I was a kid, on any clear day the sky was such a deep shade of blue that if you lay on your back on the grass and looked up, you felt you were falling into the depths. These days, the sky is *never* that intense and only even comes close to it immediately after a cold front comes through. Mostly, it's just sort of washed out.<br><br>Pollution, I suppose. But it's kind of disheartening. <p></p><i></i>

[Rigorous Intuition]

Been meaning to write something about this as well. Only in recent years has the sun appeared to me to be a harsh white glob. But I don't know if that's the sun's doing or it's merely my own perceptions, which have taken a wild ride all across the board of late. <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

See an eye doctor, dude. I have Fuchs' dystrophy, and the sun is becoming a problem. Eventually, I will have to have cornea transplants.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.stayinginshape.com/3osfcorp/libv/p52.shtml#cd">www.stayinginshape.com/3o...2.shtml#cd</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 12/6/05 8:25 pm<br></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Eye problems don't explain this:<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://sickle666.com/Chem/mine/09_23_05/b/10.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>You'll notice that the double bow is slightly offset, which technically speaking, is impossible unless there are two seperate light sources. And yes, the image includes what people call a 'chemtrail', which are ubiquitously present every time I observe an oddball light effect in the sky. Sunset of that same afternoon gave way to this:<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://sickle666.com/Chem/mine/09_23_05/b/26.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...I know several people around my age (50s) who are developing eye problems and I've wondered whether it's the sun, or computer usage.<br><br>I can't say the sun LOOKS different, and the sky is still bright blue here in the Bay Area (but we have sea breezes to move the air pollution). What I do know is the sun's rays are stronger. When I was a kid in the 1950s in Ohio, I would have to slather myself in Sea & Ski and 'lay out' as we called it for most of a day to even get the beginnings of a tan on my pale skin. If I was diligent in 'laying out' by the end of the summer I might have a decent light brown tan. Forget about getting that "California Girl" look. Now, if I'm sitting outside at a cafe without a hat, in a couple of hours I'm sunburned. Painfully so, and I peel. Having had several seborrheic keratoses removed from my face and back (from those teen/early 20s years of 'laying out'--I stopped sunbathing at age 24 because my mother told me it would age me!) including two that looked like melanomas (they weren't--I worked in a dermatology department) I sure don't want a sunburn, but sometimes I forget. I also can't use sunscreen--tried various brands but my chemical sensitivities make me miserable if I use it. So I just have to wear a brimmed hat and stay out of direct sun.<br><br>I also haven't noticed anything odd about the moon. We have very dramatic moonrises here, some spectacular harvest moons, but that's been so for the entire 20+ years I've lived here.<br><br>It was crystal clear all day today, by the way, but as I was walking home I noticed chemtrails off to the West <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :( --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/frown.gif ALT=":("><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> . <p></p><i></i>

[Dreams End]

There are easy ways to measure luminosity in objective terms.<br><br>The apparent magnitude of the sun (how it looks to us) varies inversely with the square of the distance. So, at our distance, I would think it would take a pretty good bump in absolute magnitude (how much energy it is actually emitting) to change the apparent magnitude by much. In addition, our eyes tend to downplay differences in brightness, so I don't think this could account for what you are perceiving. <br><br>Here's a graphic I found that has the sun's magnitude on the left (measured in watts/square meters), and temperature on the right. It suggests that the global warming effect may not be related to increasing sun's energy, but I admit I don't know, in practical terms, how much the rise in magnitude would affect how it appears to us on earth. It's about a .1% increase in energy reaching the earth. Far more than that is blocked by our atmosphere. <br><br>One site I found suggested that a .1% change is typical throughout the sun's cycle (lots of sunspots, few sunspots, lots of sunspots....etc.) So I'd think if this is the case, we'd have noticed as the sun cycles up and down every 11 years.<br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://mediamatters.org/static/img/limbaugh_warming.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I don't rule out the Sun's role by any means; that X-17 flare(more like CME, really) back in September was a real monster if any of you caught it; I actually saw that Sunspot with the naked eye it was so large. While a hotspot can take some weeks to build and recede for the Sun, weather can move half-way across the earth in a single day if it's inclined, ie: the Asian Brown Cloud. I don't think a measureable increase in the Sun's lumiosity is a sufficient explantion; when you're talking about diffusion/scattering effects that seems to generate a wall of light, that's an atmospheric effect. <br><br>Particulates, in other words. <p></p><i></i>

[Project Willow]

The sun has not appeared any different to me but has definitely felt hotter over the last 5 years. It can be unbearable to sit in full sun and I live in a temperate climate. I assumed it was because of loss of ozone protection? <p></p><i></i>