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Solar proton activity continues low, and solar electrons dipped as a solar wind generated a mild geomagnetic storm. Earthquake activity remains below 6M.

Trudy Day from ECTV posted a comment on the NASA article on Pinpoint just before the Digest went to press, and I did not see her comments until this morning. She points out that the author is a science journalist, and not a research scientist. She then adds the following interesting note, which I have abbreviated:[quote]
...a team of geo-physicists from Finland and Germany..have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has
been for over a 1000 years. They say their technique, which relies on a
radioactive dating technique, is the first direct quantitative
reconstruction of solar activity based on physical, rather than
statistical, models (I G Usoskin et al. 2003 Phys. Rev. Lett. 91 211101)

Sunspots are produced by magnetic activity inside the Sun. The
more active the Sun is, the more spots are produced. Observations of
sunspots began in 1610 - soon after the telescope was invented - and no
other directly obtained data exists from before this time.

Now, Usoskin and co-workers have used the concentration of
beryllium-10 in polar ice as a proxy for historic levels of solar
activity. Beryllium-10 is produced when cosmic rays interact with
particles in the Earth's atmosphere. The radioisotope then falls to the
ground where it is stored in layers of ice. The Sun's magnetic field can
deflect cosmic rays away from the Earth, so a stronger field should lead
to less beryllium-10 being produced, and vice versa.

Using modeling techniques, the Finnish team was able to extend
data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there
has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning
of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about
30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900
and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76. [/quote]

So even if the NASA article is science journalism, it is important.
On the other hand, are we just watching another solar cycle?

Donald