The Sun three years ago when storms were still visible on its surface. This image was taken by my friend Matt Francis, the director of the Prescott Observatory.
Could a Deep Solar Minimum Bring About a New Ice Age?
Sunspots are disappearing more rapidly than usual as the Sun prepares to enter the solar minimum. The last time the absence of sunspots was so prolonged was the 鈥淟ittle Ice Age,鈥 which happened back in the 1600s. Will Earth experience another cold snap?
First, understand that the Sun normally follows sunspot cycles of roughly 11 years. Think of sunspots as storms on the Sun. Learn more about sunspots here.
The cycle starts out hot with a 鈥渟olar maximum鈥 littered with solar storms and sunspots; then the temperature cools and we enter a 鈥渟olar minimum鈥 with a decrease in sunspots. Then the cycle begins again. However:
Read Next
- The current cycle 24 (which began in 2008鈥攖wo years late) has been very strange. Its 鈥渕aximum鈥 in 2014 was the lowest sunspot peak since the early 1800s. That was followed by years of decreased sunspots until now, this past year, when we鈥檝e gone weeks at a time without a single spot on the Sun鈥檚 face.
- The prior cycle 23 also had an extended period of very few sunspots compared to any cycle this past century.
We Have a Stake in the Outcome
In an op-ed that accompanied the publication of my book 鈥淭he Sun鈥檚 Heartbeat,鈥 I wrote in 2011 that, 鈥済lobal temperatures are now so steadily high that even with the recent reduced rate of warming, 2010 still managed to join 1998 as one of the warmest years ever recorded.鈥
鈥淚f the upcoming solar max of cycle 24 is normal or robust,鈥 I continued, 鈥渁nd especially if an El Nino follows it two years later (as often happens), then the middle of this decade will be the hottest period since humans arrived on Earth. However, if the upcoming maximum is wimpy, as most solar researchers expect, or if the Sun is now entering an extended period of low activity with another deep minimum to follow, that is the best thing it could possibly do for us. Such a scenario would mitigate climate change. Essentially, the Sun has been buying us time.鈥
Want to know what happened? Well, cycle 24 has now run its course. Sunspots are vanishing even faster than we expected. Forecasters have been saying for years that this would happen as cycle 24 comes to an end. The surprise is how fast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) agrees, saying: 鈥淪olar cycle 24 is declining more quickly than forecast.鈥
As the NOAA graph makes clear, we are bottoming out now, with almost no solar storm activity.
Solar Cycle Sunspot Number
How Does the Sun Affect Earth鈥檚 Climate?
This affects us because Earth鈥檚 climate gets cooler when there are fewer solar storms. The extreme example happened between 1645 and 1715 when the normal 11-year sunspot cycle vanished. This period, called the Maunder Minimum, was accompanied by bitterly cold winters in the American colonies. Fishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland were abandoned. Icebergs were seen near the English channel. The canals of Venice froze. It was a time of great hardship.
No one understands why the 11-year sunspot cycle could simply stop for a full human lifetime. (Back then, it strangely coincided with the rule of the French 鈥淪un King,鈥 Louis XIV). There鈥檚 no way to know if we鈥檙e really currently on the cusp of a repeat performance.
But if this strange recent solar activity means that another Maunder Minimum is nearly upon us, as a few solar researchers believe, the global cooling would be mitigating Earth鈥檚 warming at the best possible time.
However, if we do have a 鈥淢aunder Minimum,鈥 it would not be a return to the 鈥淟ittle Ice Age.鈥 Solar radiation expert Judith Lean, PhD, of the Naval Research Laboratory points to a current global surface temperature that鈥檚 about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than at the time of the Maunder Minimum and says that a return to a Maunder Minimum phenomenon would lead to a cooling by only one-tenth of a degree C or 0.18 degree F.
We鈥檒l have to wait and see.
For the moment, if you have a leftover solar filter from last August鈥檚 eclipse, take a glance at the Sun these days. You鈥檒l see a strange blank disk.
See our full update on solar activity, the Little Ice Age, and cycle 24.
Bob Berman
ADVERTISEMENT
There is more to it than the suns lower output. I have read articles where the large planets are situated behind earth thus pulling us further away from the sun in a larger orbital path. The large planets location in the future can be calculated.
You need to stop tracking the sunspots and start looking at the agricultural picture. There has been reports substantiated with government figures detailing massive losses of crops due to drastic weather changes. Wheat futures are rising and crop productions have dropped. Spain was hit with an extremely violent hail storm that destroyed most of the coasts' vegetable crops. Farmers in our own heartland have had to delay planting due to prolonged cold. Italy just announced that for the first time, they may have to import olive oil as they have had record cold temperatures for the last two years.
I am not a scientist nor alarmist. I now look forward to you twisting this to relate it to carbon. Funny how when Mr. Gore's predictions of massive warming didn't come through, that lefties like you suddenly called it climate change. Any deviation is a climate change so that filled the void of record warmth. Did you not see the French people's reaction to the oppressive carbon taxes? They rioted as they needed to. I will continue with my belief that the carbon panic is a means for a certain few to extract money from the remaining many.
Thank you for pointing out the truth. It's hard to discern truth from paid propaganda anymore. They're still trying to get us to believe that the cooling is a direct result of the warming and watering down the potential effects of the obvious changes. Look what's happened with US crop losses since they wrote this sharticle!! I've planted my garden because I don't want to pay $5 for a head of celery next year.
First of all, you can't connect regional, one off events to either climate change, or solar activity. Secondly, hail is not associated with cold. Having a large hail storm that wipes out crops is not indicative of global cooling, or global warming. Third, no, the farmers in our heartland were not delayed by cold, they were delayed by flooding. In case you forgot, it forgot to stop raining this spring, and even into summer in a lot of areas. Fourth, even if it's true that Italy had to import olives because it was cold, it was due to an extreme winter, kind of like we had here in the Midwest. I haven't seen that they actually HAD to, just that they were thinking they might have to...
Ironically, though, this was due to climate change. It was colder in Minnesota than it was in the Arctic circle during our cold snaps that we had here. That was because warm air went up into the Arctic, and pushed up into the troposphere, and pushed to frigid arctic air out, and down into lower latitudes. Climate change can mean it's colder than normal where you live.
I don't have to prove anything. Things will prove themselves. 2019 is on track to be the 3rd hottest year on record, (maybe as low as the 5th) and that will make the last 6 years, the 6 hottest years on record. That is a trend. 17 out of the last 18 years have been the hottest years on record. That is a trend.
You have to go back 47 years to find a cooler than normal month. That is a rather large and obvious trend.
Trends show what is happening.
I'm disabled, but do try to grow my own food when I can. Growing season was super short last season. I'm totally freaking out about where I should even live going forward. It's been so cold this fall we are getting winter heating bills earlier than normal. It's really difficult to afford either food or heat. I don't see this ending well. To be so upbeat about cooling like it's a good thing, is irresponsible, to say the least.
Uban heat island effect conveniently overlooked.
Solar Minimums bring with them more than cooling. It will bring extensive flooding to various places, or droughts, and a completely wacky and unpredictable jet stream....
It brings late frosts to food growing regions, and damaging hail. It will bring ridiculous storminess that will cause untold damage.
Solar Minimums bring food shortages and, in the past that meant starvation. For us, really high food prices and many items simply unobtainable. People will be displaced, as they will no longer be able to farm.
Solar Minimum brings about extensive crop damage.
A solar minimum is never a good thing for humanity.
I agree I'm a farmer and it has been ridiculous to get any thing done in a timely matter late springs cold summers hail floods and early frosts significant crop losses coupled with low commodity prices if it were up to me we should not turn a wheel for two years put in cover crops for soil health create food shortages like the oil industry does for oil get the prices up then maybe we could make a living. I disagree about shortages it's a distribution problem we can't get the food we're needed cause of government corruption.
So what's the bad news?
This idle period really started when the Sun emitted an enormous flare in 2006, before the Sun spot count began to drop. It was massive, enough to alarm solar physicists. When the Sun went into a period of near-zero activity beginning in the fall of 2006, it also alarmed solar scientists and the media got into it with another Litttle Ice Age, Maunder Minimum, etc., etc., etc. When activity returned, in the spring of 2008, which was 18 months later, they all breathed a sign of relief, which was short-lived because the activity levels, including magnetic storms and sunspot counts, were below normal and the Sun did NOT switch its magnetic poles as it usually does.
So here we are, 12 years later and the few sunspots that have appeared have, in some cases, been smaller than the Earth, or nearly invisible on the surface. Magnetic activity is also very low.
I'm just keeping track of how far into the summer season I have to run my furnace to keep my little house reasonably warm and how many rain days there are as opposed to sun days. Frankly, this is the third spring in a row that budding in trees and flowering shrubs has been late, and this year, it was later than ever. That may be partly due to lower solar input and partly due to chillier temperatures at night. The trees did not break buds open until nearly the end of April - not normal for around here (northeastern Illinois) but we seem to be in the path of a scoop of cold air coming down from the Far North near Hudson's Bay, which is still mostly ice-covered - about 95%, per the satellite images. South of me, mid-state, it's near-normal, although my sister has told me she's still running her furnace, too.
So if we go into a cold cycle, so what? It's part of the natural order of things. It's a cycle and like all cycles it has a beginning, a middle and an ending. We've have a rather long cycle period of warm weather, starting back in the 20th century, and that cycle may be ending. Big deal.
Just stock your pantry and your freezer, and be prepared for it. We might have an early, cold Autumn, too. What's the big deal? Two years ago, at the end of October, I was at a wetland area with a camera, a place loaded with geese at sunrise waiting for the sun to show over the hill behind me. I got some absolutely great shots of them taking off and heading to the flyway. I was half-frozen by the time I got home, because in the shadows of the trees, it was about 28F. Pretty normal weather for that time of year.
If I do that again this year, I will enjoy it thoroughly.
