The Quiet Sun Continues In 2009.
Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 08:56AM 
The United Kingdom Met Office is the official UK meteorological agency and is one of the most vocal advocates of human induced global warming in the world today. Since man-made global warming is suppose to occur over the long term, lets see how credible the Met Office has forecasted the weather in the short term.
In early 2007, the Met Office predicted that the year was likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998. It turned out that global temperatures in 2007 dropped nearly 0.8 degrees according to satellite data, one of the sharpest drops on record. A bad forecast for sure until you consider the next one.
Last Autumn, the Met Office forecast for the United Kingdom for the winter of 2008-2009 was released as follows: “the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.” Now, compare that to the press release it issued last week: “So far, the UK winter has been the coldest for over a decade” and “Met Office forecasters expect the cold theme to the weather to continue well into next week with the chance of further snow.”
In fact, Britain had its first October snow in seventy years last October while the entire winter has featured arctic blizzards and extreme cold. In 2009, cold and snow have even visited places that have left people literally speechless . Nearly four inches of snow blanketed the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Jais region for just the second time in recorded history on January 24. The event was so rare that the local dialect has no word for snowfall.
The truth is that there has not been any global warming for the last decade and for the last two years, global temperatures have been in dramatic decline. This global cooling trend seems to correspond with the long current solar minimum in sunspot activity. Last year a lack of sunspot activity made it the 2nd blankest sun in the last century and 2007 was a year that was also included in the list of the top ten blank suns.
The lack of sunspot activity continues in January 2009. The number of monthly sunspots averaged just three last year. Since Sunspot 1002 of this current sunspot cycle (24) appeared in Sept 2008, the sun has not gone more than 30 days between sunspots.
However, the last noteworthy sunspot appeared on Jan 9, 2009 (Sunspot 1010) . So, if a sunspot does not appear in the next five days, it will be a month since the last spot was seen on the sun.
The Met Office continues to forecast with a global warming bias. So, their accuracy rate probably won’t improve anytime soon. The quiet sun continues in 2009 and its leaving those warm forecasts from the Met Office out in the cold.
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