Upcoming Grand Solar Minimum Could Wipe Out Global Warming for Decades
October 05, 2020
Unknown to most people except those with an interest in solar science, the sun is about to shut down. Well, not completely – we’ll still have plenty of sunlight and heat, but the small dark blotches on the sun’s surface called sunspots, visible in the figure below, are on the verge of disappearing. According to some climate scientists, this heralds a prolonged cold stretch of maybe 35 years starting in 2020, despite global warming.
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How could that happen? Because sunspots, which are caused by magnetic turbulence in the sun’s interior, signal subtle changes in solar output or activity – changes that can have a significant effect on the earth’s climate. Together with the sun’s heat and light, the monthly or yearly number of sunspots goes up and down during the approximately 11-year solar cycle. For several decades now, the maximum number of sunspots seen in a cycle has been declining.
The last time sunspots disappeared altogether was during the so-called Maunder Minimum, a 70-year cool period in the 17th and 18th centuries forming part of the Little Ice Age, and illustrated in the next figure showing the sunspot number over time. The Maunder Minimum from approximately 1645 to 1710 was the most recent occurrence of what are known as grand solar minima, or periods of very low solar activity, that recur every 350 to 400 years. So we’re due for another minimum.
https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2020/10/5/upcoming-grand-solar-minimum-could-wipe-out-global-warming-for-decades-62
