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Will a sleeping Sun bring years of cold winters?

Latest data on solar activity suggests that the sun is heading towards a very quite spells i the coming months,

The chart below shows the decline in activity since Cycle 24 peak in 1014 and the red line is the predicted activity in the coming months,

If this is the path that the sun takes then it is likely that there will be a impact, however small on the earths weather.

It's the length of time that the sun stays quiet for that is key. The Maunder Minimum lasted from 1645 to 1715 and bought about a run of bitterly cold winters.

 

Here's the sunspot chart covering that period (from Wikipedia), notice the Maunder Minimum period in red.

 

And a reconstructed temperature record back to 800AD using radiocarbon data, notice the cold Maunder Minimum period.

 

The critical factor is that if the sun stays quiet for any length of time then a period of low temperature could set in. The argument is that this may be offset by climate change, but the most fascinating thing of all is that no-one really knows what the impact will be!

 

 

 

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