The sun – still slumping

Seriously though. These results of solar observations make the case for more research into frost tolerant crops. There seems little doubt the weather/climate of my youth is about to return. I did enjoy the igloos/ snow forts we made and played in.

‘SanityP says:
September 3, 2012 at 8:29 am
For someone who isn’t very fluent in speaking and understanding “sunspots”, this is just another one of those swosh-moments. Can someone who do speak “sunspots”, give us minions an abbreviated “The Idiot’s Guide to sunspots”, please? What does it all mean ? Are we doomed ?’
1. The sun has things called sunspots on its surface some of the time and the numbers of them have been shown to oscillate from a minimum through a maximum and back down to a minimum in a cycle whose length varies from cycle to cycle but is usually around 11 years.
2. Due to changes in the sun’s magnetic field, the solar cycles are usually grouped in pairs of ‘odd cycles’ and ‘even cycles’. One pair is called a Hale Cycle which is usually around 22 years.
3. It has been shown that certain features in the global weather patterns show cyclical patterns, some of which are linked to one solar cycle, others to the Hale cycle. There are other ‘footprints’ of shorter or longer duration which are also linked to interactions between solar and lunar variables; solar and big planet variables etc etc.
4. The effect of sunspots is to change the intensity of certain radiation emitted from the sun which reaches the earth. Occasionally, these can be major pertubations when features called ‘Coronal Mass Ejections’ or ‘Flares’ occur. These have effects on radio signals, satellites and other things orbiting our earth, so folks like NASA, the Hubble Telescope guys etc etc monitor these things carefully.
5. People have noticed that every few hundred years the sun ‘goes quieter’ or ‘very quiet’ for a few decades to several decades. These periods are called minima and are usually named after someone. The Maunder Minimum in the Middle Ages was particularly quiet, whereas a smaller minimum occurred in the early part of the 19th century and was called the Dalton Minimum.
6. Although understanding is still far from complete, researchers are now trying to link solar activity, specific solar output to weather patterns, either short-term or long-term. Piers Corbyn of Weather Action Ltd is someone who makes a living out of this, being particularly adept at predicting extreme weather events associated with solar/lunar pertubations several months ahead of time. His method continues to evolve, as he would freely admit both to his subscribers and those who read his website (www.weatheraction.com).
7. In general, also, the fewer the sunspots you get in an 11 year cycle, the greater the likelihood there is of cooling of the earth. Conversely a series of high sunspot cycles, as occurred in the 20th century, is postulated/believed to be associated with a warming climate. The Little Ice Age was associated with the Maunder Minimum, which was the quietest period of sunspot activity in the past 500 years.
8. Researchers are also wondering whether frequencies of volcanoes/earthquakes/tsunamis etc can be linked to the sunspot cycles. There is certainly no official scientific proof of this, but people are looking at it and having attempts at predicting such events. Time will tell whether they are accurate or not.
9. Of course, if scientists could predict how sunspot cycles would pan out a few decades in advance, this would be extremely valuable for mankind if our politicians, financial communities and farmers made good use of such information for the benefit of societies. In particular, if we were able to predict a marginalisation of yield in major growing areas like Canada, the Northern Mid West of the USA, Russia/Ukraine etc due to the onset of a mini ice age, then efforts would surely be made to evolve agricultural production through lower latitudes. It’s by no means clear that we are able to do this yet and it may take 100 years more of detailed research before it does become possible.
10. Really detailed monitoring of the Sun has only become possible in the era of satellites and telescopes and therefore data prior to about 1950 isn’t really as accurate as the measurements since 1979, when the first satellite data started coming through. As a result, true understanding of what sunspots looked like back in the 1700s, 1800s etc etc is never going to be as accurate as scientists would like. Nonetheless, data from 24 cycles of sunspot cycles since the end of the Maunder Minimum is what scientists use for their predictions for the future.
11. Currently, many scientists believe that the current cycle (24) and the next one (25) will be much weaker than those which have preceded them. There is a body of opinion which believes this points to cooling tendencies from the sun, although how any warming of oceans may compensate for that in terms of air temperatures and subsequent land temperatures is less clear. Scientists who believe that solar output is a major contributor to temperature fluctuations on earth are therefore somewhat skeptical about the ‘global warming’ scaremongering going on particular those who postulate increasing carbon dioxide as the major forcing mechanism.
12. It would not be considered ludicrous therefore for politicians to plan for little rise in temperatures for the next 30 years and they should certainly scenario plan for a possibility of significant cooling. Given, however, that the Dalton minimum in the early 19th century only lasted for 2 cycles before solar output increased again, until proven otherwise, it should be assumed that a return to potentially warmer fare may occur thereafter. Politicians will ask scientists, however, to be constantly looking out for signals that the sun may be going into a deeper sleep and they should be planning how to manage a Northern Hemisphere which might become dangerously short of food in the absence of the Sahara not becoming more fertile in response, should a Maunder-style minimum come to pass.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to take this as gospel truth, nonetheless, I reckon it’s probably a fair summary for non-experts and certainly doesn’t say anything which is clearly false.