The surface of the sun with a sunspot and solar flaresAstronomers are currently observing very few sunspots and the spotless day streak has grown to 24 days straight. The current solar sunspot observation minimum is part of a pattern going back 400 years, and for the most part is to be expected. I say for the most part because it seems many forecasts and scientific analogs pointed towards 2008 being the solar minimum with an increase in sunspot activity arising in 2009. The problem is the sunspot number continues to decrease in April 2009.
The sun with lots of sunspots
What is a sunspot? Has this ever happened before? What implications are possible if sunspot numbers don’t increase anytime soon? A sunspot is a planet-sized region on the Sun's surface that is marked by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection and forms areas of reduced surface temperature (therefore making them “dark spots” on the sun). Sunspots are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Sunspot minimums come along every 11 years or so, and when plotting sunspot counts, we see peaks of solar activity are always followed by valleys of minimum solar activity.
Therefore, it is expected for the Sun to undergo minimum solar activity on a regular basis. 2008 was considered a very deep solar minimum where no sunspots were observed on 266 days out of the year (73%). Only one year during the last 100 years observed a lower sunspot activity, 1913 (85%). As of April 19th, there have been no sunspots observed on 96 out of the 109 days (88%) so far this year. However, sunspot activity has been lower on several occasions during the last 400 years.
So what implications would an extended solar minimum period mean for Earth? Although there is a better chance than not that sunspot activity increases in the next few months and follows the cycle, if for any reason it doesn’t, we should examine past examples of similar cases to see what this would mean for Earth.
According to NASA research, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between sunspot activity and measured changes in global temperatures on Earth. As evidence shows us that the “Maunder Minimum” and “Dalton Minimum” were times where Earth experienced anomalously cold temperatures. The years surrounding the “Maunder Minimum” are now commonly called the “Little Ice Age”. “Dalton’s Minimum” combined with the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 set the stage for the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, as it is commonly referred.
Earth’s surface temperature saw a drop in 2008, which I think is no coincidence given the deep solar minimum. IF, we were to see a “Maunder Minimum” type of sunspot activity occur over the next few decades, the world’s economy and agriculture would suffer tremendously. Many scientists who believe in global warming speculate that this deep solar minimum we are currently experiencing will keep global temperatures from rising over the next few years until sunspot activity increases towards the next predicted maximum in 2012 or 2013. Climate change is a much heated debate in the scientific community; however the one mechanism that both sides agree upon which influences earth’s surface temperature is sunspot activity.
To the naked eye this is what a sunspot looks like.
As mentioned previously, it should be a matter of time before the solar cycle corrects itself and solar activity increases towards the next maximum. Nonetheless, extended solar minimums have been observed in recent history and if it were to occur, would have tremendous impacts on the world’s economy and agriculture. This might go some way to explaining the incredible amounts of snow we had earlier this year and the period of calm weather that we are currently experiencing. I also wonder how much effect the sunspots have on global warming, but that’s for another day.
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At the top of this post are photos of the sun with lots of sunspot activity. This is a photo taken on April 19th showing nothing happening at all.
1 comment:
A voice for reason in the digital wilderness is good to find. The current solar cycle's long slide to an ever-lower minimum resembles nothing more than the end of Solar Cycle 4, which led into the Dalton Minimum. The 100,000 year record of beryllium-10 as an inverse proxy for solar activity, provides a much better explanation of global temperatures than carbon dioxide does. Dr. William Soon of Harvard has recently added his research to the other evidence that solar activity is a statistically superior explanation of temperatures than carbon dioxide.
The cruel joke on scientists that Nature appears to have played is that the past century has seen an unusually high level of solar activity, almost exactly corresponding to the rise in carbon dioxide. Now that the Sun is calming down and the Earth is cooling while carbon dioxide continues to rise, it is looking more and more like the sun is the driver, carbon dioxide is mostly just an effect of warming oceans (as warm soda goes flat), and anthropogenic global warming will join cold fusion and Lysenkoism on the ash heap of scientific history.
I think the big current concern is how to limit the damage done by the anthropogenic global warming cult before the events of the next 20 years prove them completely and utterly wrong. I've always been an environmentalist. It is always good to use resources efficiently, and pollution is harmful and ought to be limited, but carbon dioxide is not pollution. Every last organic carbon molecule in our bodies was once carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is arguably more essential to life than molecular oxygen. After major economies are destroyed and third-world development is delayed at the cost of millions of lives, all in a misguided attempt to reduce carbon emissions, will they say, "oops, sorry"?
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