Missing sunspots solved by NASA?

John A has this post on Watts Up With That

News from NASA that they believe they have solved the mystery of the missing sunspots and why the solar minimum was so prolonged:

Researchers Crack the Mystery of the Missing Sunspots
March 2, 2011: In 2008-2009, sunspots almost completely disappeared for two years. Solar activity dropped to hundred-year lows; Earth’s upper atmosphere cooled and collapsed; the sun’s magnetic field weakened, allowing cosmic rays to penetrate the Solar System in record numbers. It was a big event, and solar physicists openly wondered, where have all the sunspots gone?

Now they know. An answer is being published in the March 3rd edition of Nature.

In this artistic cutaway view of the sun, the Great Conveyor Belt appears as a set of black loops connecting the stellar surface to the interior. Credit: Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard CfA
“Plasma currents deep inside the sun interfered with the formation of sunspots and prolonged solar minimum,” says lead author Dibyendu Nandi of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata. “Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun’s interior.”

You can read the rest here.  So, if they have a computer model, where is the forecast?  What?  More study need? Why do all studes conclude that more study is need. Are they really saying send more money and we will give you more of the answer? However, we are no going to give you the final answer, more study is needed.

Comments

[Larry Sheldon]

Too bad I've learned to not believe anything in "Nature" except their page numbers--and I spot check those, should I be trapped in a dentist's office with nothing to read.